Every inch of Staples Center contains a memory of Kobe Bryant for Andrew Bernstein. The Hall of Fame photographer chronicled every significant moment of Bryant’s career, from his arrival in Los Angeles as a 17-year-old to his final game, when he followed Bryant to the loading dock on his way out of the building. In those two decades, the men became friends. They co-authored a book.
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“He just trusted me to be in his world,” Bernstein said.
The first days back at Staples Center bordered on impossible for Bernstein, the team photographer for the Lakers, Clippers and Kings, who has made the downtown arena his canvas. He would arrive before games and settle into his baseline seat opposite the two retired jerseys that stared back at him.
“The heaviness of it was as a little bit unsurmountable at the beginning,” he said.
Then came Thursday’s loss to the Houston Rockets, the Lakers’ third game back at Staples Center since Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash along with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. In the third quarter, Danny Green knocked the ball away from James Harden and Avery Bradley started a fast break. He lobbed it ahead to LeBron James, who had a lane for a wide-open dunk.
The action was moving away from Bernstein. He employs, however, a system of remote cameras on the other end of the floor, which can be triggered by a button taped to his camera. As James leaped, Bernstein clicked.
“As soon as I saw him elevate and then do anything with the ball, I just banged it,” Bernstein said. “Honestly, I thought I shot too late, because he’s not known for that kind of windmill thing.”
But James double-clutched on the reverse. If he hadn’t, Bernstein feared the ball would be blocking James’ face. Now, he thought, he might have something. He texted his assistant back in the photo room where his images were transmitted, asking to see the raw image when it came in. Five minutes later, he received a screengrab from the camera hidden at the base of the stanchion.
What Bernstein saw was a photograph that almost immediately went viral and has been hailed by some as one of the most indelible of James’ career. There is the photo from the Miami days of Dwyane Wade celebrating his lob to James as James has the ball co*cked behind his head. There are those of his chase-down block on Andre Iguodala in the Finals. And now, this: James suspended in midair, the ball at his hip, his legs in full stride.
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“It’s like I’m walking on air,” James said Saturday night after the Lakers eked out a 125-120 win over Golden State at Chase Center.
The Lakers star was blown away when he first saw the picture from 48 hours earlier.
“I was like, ‘Holy sh*t,’” he said. “That is an unbelievable photo. And then when I found how it was taken. … Andy literally had one snap on his remote to get that.”
The thing with the remote system is that Bernstein can’t just hold the trigger, fire off a burst of photos and choose from the best frame. It takes the flashbulbs in the ceiling four seconds to reset.
He got one chance and nailed it.
“He’s the real MVP for sure,” James said.
James posted the image to his Instagram page, where it received more than four million likes.
For Bernstein, it was a throwback to the days earlier in his career, when he would show up at Staples Center and if he didn’t get multiple shots of a young, aerobatic Bryant dunking, it was “a disappointing game.”
He realized how quickly it was spreading when he was leaving Staples Center on Thursday night and ran into James’ agent, Rich Paul, and Klutch Sports chief operating officer Fara Leff.
Leff said, “Was that your photo of LeBron? The crazy one with him hanging in midair?”
If the moment reminded Bernstein of Bryant, there was a good reason.
The next day, the Lakers posted a video that would change the way everyone viewed the already iconic play. It started with the Lakers’ turnover, then switched to grainy footage of a 2001 game against the Sacramento Kings. Shaquille O’Neal knocked the ball away from Vlade Divac and threw an outlet pass to Bryant. The 23-second video showed Bryant executed the same double-clutch reverse dunk as James on the same basket at Staples Center.
The uncanny similarity between the plays was discovered by Lakers videographer Josh Williams, who assembled the video, which like Bernstein’s photo, was shared by the Lakers and James on social media and went viral.
Same arena. Same basket. Same dunk. 19 years apart. 💜💛 pic.twitter.com/fj7HRmqv3c
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) February 8, 2020
“Our great social media team put that together and I was like, ‘That’s really, really good,” James said.
He said Saturday the dunk was not, as some speculated, an homage to Bryant. He said that he saw a video Saturday where his son, Bronny, had done the same dunk in the layup line during warmups for his Sierra Canyon High School team.
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“Kobe is in all of us right now,” James said.
When his postgame interviews had ended, James continued to marvel at the serendipity of his dunk so closely mirroring that of Bryant’s.
“You ever seen the movie, ‘The 6th Man?’” he asked. In the 1997 film about brothers who star on a college basketball team, one of the brothers dies, but returns as a ghost to help his brother and team run the table through the NCAA Tournament.
“Kobe came down, put himself in my body and made me do that dunk on the break,” James said.
It is now part of his history, a connection between himself and Bryant. He said Bernstein’s photo will hang in his home one day.
Bernstein has captured some of the most unforgettable images in NBA history. He has photographed Magic Johnson and Larry Bird; all six of Michael Jordan’s championships; the Lakers’ 21st-century dynasties. Never has a single photograph inspired the flood of response Thursday’s shot of James in midair did, he said.
“I’m having a little trouble with that,” he said. “I’m wondering why this has just gone so crazy, this picture.”
The angle from which it was shot, originally innovated by Bernstein, is a staple in every arena. Bernstein has captured countless other dunks, including one recently of Ja Morant that he thought was particularly eye-popping. It barely registered relative to the shot of James.
“I’m trying to figure it out,” he said. “Maybe people are reacting subconsciously because they need something super positive in this darkness we’re going through.”
Many around the league are having a hard time separating the function of basketball games from the tragedy of Bryant’s death. Bernstein, quite literally, can’t see the game through any other lens.
But he persists. In the wake of Bryant’s death, Bernstein began sorting through old photos of Bryant. He said he “matter-of-factly” began pulling photos to send to television networks that had invited him on for interviews.
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“But then I found this folder of photos of he and I, which I had put together,” Bernstein said. “And that was just brutal because it goes back to his rookie year.”
He posted 10 pictures of them together on Instagram.
“I feel like it’s my service, my job to be a conduit between people’s need to be connected to Kobe in some way shape and form,” Bernstein said, “and if they can do it through my photos or my stories or whatever or through the book we did together, it’s extremely gratifying to me through this malaise of grief.”
And that library of photos continues to grow. Like many who are grieving, Bernstein finds comfort in the work.
“When I see a picture like this,” Bernstein said, “it gives me a little bit of just like a ray of sunshine or just a little bit of brightness through the clouds. And I can’t help but remember how many times I shot him doing that.”
(Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images)
