《The Economist》Obituary(讣告)——Kobe Bryant(3)

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. 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.（起步算早，在天分的帮助下，外加自己的努力，勤奋，逐步成为了“黑曼巴”）
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. 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.（讲述了科比篮球技术炉火纯青，怎么在场上执行战术，去努力投进每一个球）