2020年经济学人 篮球巨星科比·布莱恩特(3)（在线收听）

He cared about being the best, winning games. Simple and plain. His obsession could make him by turns hustling, mean and dejected. When he joined the Lakers, his dream team, in 1996, traded from the Charlotte Hornets, he was only 17, the youngest player in the NBA. He had been picked for the pro leagues straight from his suburban high school and had lived as a boy in Italy, two things that made him odd. But he came in burning with self-belief. No babying for him; he was hard, focused, a lone artist, and much of that stayed.

科比关心的是成为最好的球员，赢得比赛。就是这么简单。他的痴迷会让他时不时地变得急躁、刻薄和沮丧。当科比在1996年被夏洛特黄蜂交易，加入他的梦之队湖人队时，他只有17岁，是NBA最年轻的球员。科比是从郊区的高中直接被选入职业联盟的，而且他小时候在意大利生活过，这两件事让他与众不同。但科比进入NBA的时候充满了自信。他已然成熟；他是一个努力、专注、孤独的艺术家，而这一点在他身上得到了延续。

He called himself the Black Mamba later, an assassinsnake, ruthless in the strike. Unjust foul calls and lost play-off games—especially the finals against the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics—threw him into misery and vows of revenge. On the court, lithe and nimble, he wanted every game for himself. Team-mates thought him selfish, not passing enough and shooting far too much, missing more shots in his career than anyone in NBA history. He hit back at that, since at least he stayed with one team and didn’t go off somewhere else; he wanted the glory of winning the play-offs for the purple-and-golds, not just himself.

他后来称自己为黑曼巴，是一名在战斗中冷酷无情的杀手。不公正的判罚和输掉的季后赛-特别是总决赛对底特律活塞 和波士顿凯尔特人-使他陷入痛苦，立下复仇誓言。在球场上，科比动作轻盈敏捷，想把每一场比赛都据为己有。队友们认为他自私，传球不够，投篮太多，在整个职业生涯中，他投丢的球比NBA历史上任何人都要多。科比对此进行了回击，因为至少他留在了一支球队，没有离开其他球队; 他想为紫金军团赢得季后赛的荣誉，而不仅仅是为他自己。

Yet he so loved the ball that it just seemed drawn towards his hands. And he went on shooting, and shooting, not least because he sometimes saved a game with a fabulous floater in the final seconds. Besides, airballs too could look and feel good, good from trajectory to follow-through, on-line, on target. Some people thought Mozart had too many notes. As in most love affairs, he had competition. One was Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of the era, the Buddha on top of the mountain and winner of six rings, whom he once asked for advice while he was guarding him.

但他太喜欢球了，以至于球似乎都跑到了他的手中。他不停地投篮，不停地投篮，不止是因为他有时会在比赛的最后几秒用一个漂亮的飘移投篮挽救比赛。此外，空气球也可以看起来和感觉良好，良好的轨迹，持续的投篮动作，球没有偏离篮筐。有些人还认为莫扎特音乐的音符太多了。和大多数恋爱一样，他也有竞争对手。一个球员是迈克尔·乔丹，那个时代最伟大的篮球运动员，他是山顶上的佛，赢得了六次总冠军，科比曾经在防守他的时候向他寻求建议。