I've worked in this business for more than 25 years.

I have covered everyone from Mohammed Ali to Michael Jordan, from Joe Montana to Tom Brady, from Serena Williams to Tiger Woods.

And I can tell you for sure, there has never been anyone quite like Kobe Bean.

He could burn with intensity one minute and make mischief the next.

He was wildly creative, but at the same time maddeningly precise.

He was not perfect.

He had flaws.

He did things that he would come to deeply regret.

But he also understood that what you did next, how you move forward, that mattered deeply.

And he made the absolute most of every minute, every day, every year that he was with us.

I actually saw him not that long before he died.

And I remember so clearly that day how we were joking about having crossed the threshold of having known each other for more than half our lives and what that meant about how old we had both gotten.

Of course, now all I can think about is how young he was when he was taken from us.

How young, That sweet funny, smart, talented girl Waas.

And what a tragedy it is for the family that was left behind.

And to that end, we want to make clear that over these next two hours we're keeping front and center the words of Vanessa Bryant, who recently posted on Instagram that she knew today would be full of remembrances of her late husband.

She wrote quote, I want to thank everyone that has handled their media coverage respectfully to everyone else.

Please reconsider your news story and look at your footage through the eyes of their Children.

Spouse, parents, siblings and family celebrate their lives, not the day they lost them.

So that is what we are going to do today.

We're going to celebrate the extraordinary and we're not the only ones.

Last night, Kyrie Irving arrived in his game wearing a Kobe number eight jersey and he told the camera, Man, you know who I'm rocking tonight.

Robert!

Matt E.

No.

This day has been on the calendar.

You knew it was coming.

But Robert, why don't we start with you?

What do you remember about your friend today?

What's the bringing up for you?

You know for me.

Um I got to know Kobe when he was a rookie, and I got traded to the Lakers and it was all this hype around this high school kid, and I'm like, Okay, I haven't seen him play yet, so I get into practice and it's a shoot around and he's going 1000 miles an hour and I'm looking.

I'm like, Dude, slow down.

He's like, I got to get better.

I got to get better and that was just his whole mentality.

He wanted to get better each and every day.

And I'm looking like Dude is shoot around.

Nobody's going 100 miles power.

But the thing about him is you just knew he was destined be great because he had that energy network ethic like no other.

And for me tohave that moment to see what he could become and have a lot of conversations with this guy and share some of my knowledge with him.

And I remember when we finally had that first one on one, the first thing out of his mouth was Tell me about dreams, footwork.

I'm like I'm doing all right.

Thanks for asking, you know, But it was just that he wanted to get better.

Hey, wanted to learn from the guy that had the best footwork in the game, and that's just who he was.

His whole mental was to get better and to try to be the best.

That that game and all I could do was sit back and just respect him and just watch him and believe it or not, learn from him because even though you've it coming off two championships, you watching this guy putting his work each and every day and you learning from like, Oh, I can't let this young fellow out work You just wanted to go on, Move on.

Yeah, I mean, mine is is kind of post career, obviously, you know, our battles that have been well documented, but just the person outside of basketball.

Kobe, the man, the father, the businessman and how, Although basketball was over, he still attacked everything with that same passion, desire and focus.

Um, the way he fathered how Adam and he was about trying to put his last 20 years behind him, his greatness in basketball and and be known for what was next.

Hey was always trying to innovate.

He was always trying toe get better, get himself better.

You guys found this footage Thing was, of course.

So just your sons.

I mean, really, you know, he was uncle Cope to the boys, you know?

And like I said, it's way became teammates to twitter, like three.

And he started, you know, treating him like he was a known, bringing them shoes all the time, hugging him, talking to him, bring him in the locker room.

So he was just a special person.

Obviously, we know how amazing on the court he was, but he did just a za amazing things off the court as well.

I loved you talking over the past year a little bit about how you guys were these great rivals, right?

And of course, we all know the Flinch video, the whole thing, but that when you did become teammates, the kinship you think with each other stages of your lives you were going through, and it was an instant brotherhood.

You know, we're both going through things in our personal life, and we really just bonded, um, practice after practice.

Uh, you know, post games, going out, grabbing a drink or grabbing some dinner and, like I said, getting the chance to really learn each other as men outside of outside of the basketball court.

And that's what my fondest memories of him wasn't just really getting a chance to know, because Robert tell you he doesn't let to meet people in and if allowed to let you in, it's It's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, once he lets you in, it's a wonderful thing, like you said.

And there's so many moments that we share privately and it's it's amazing to me that he has moments with Everybody is different.

Every story is different.

It's almost like he put everybody in the categories.

Okay, I'm gonna talk with you about kids.

You know what cars you about footwork and it said he.

To me, it's almost like it was three or four different.

Kobe's out there that he was in different places at different times because you hear the stories, you're like I was around that time.

How do you get there?

What what is it going on?

But it's so many stories.

I think having my one of my other favorite stories is just when you have those long plane rides, you have moments.

Just sit down and you talk about everything outside of basketball.

You know, I talked to him about his times growing up as a kid in a foreign country.

He talked about me growing up in the South and how it was and, you know, and the little thing and all of a sudden, you like, do you don't play space?

I'm like every black person America play space, you know?

You just sit there and you're teaching this guy how to play spades.

You know, it's just It was just like a big brother kinship.

But it was so many memories like that.

Then you sit back on the day like the day and you just think about it.

Even the last memory I have of him is meeting him at Mamba Academy a week before this thing's tragedy happened, and just laughing and joking and talking about everything other than basketball.

That was my favorite part.