SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The first question was quintessentially Kobe.
"When I first called to check on him I said, 'Are you all right, I want to make sure you are not being a baby about it?'" Kobe Bryant recalls of a November 2017 phone call.
On the other end of the line was San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman, one day removed from suffering the right Achilles tendon rupture that would end his 2017 season and, eventually, his seven-year tenure as the shutdown cornerback of the Seattle Seahawks' famed Legion of Boom defense.