There simply was no one like Kobe

Sonny Vaccaro, the longtime basketball kingpin and sneaker executive, first met Kobe Bryant after the player’s sophomore season of high school. Vaccaro has seen them all thru the years, signing Michael Jordan to Nike, later serving as confidant to a high schooler named LeBron James, and befriending countless young and gifted players en route to NBA glory.

Now here was Kobe, just 15, a relative unknown who’d grown up in Italy and only got invited to the then-Adidas ABCD Camp that Vaccaro was running because Vaccaro knew his dad, Joe Bryant, from back in the day.

Except Kobe proved to be far more than just some legacy invite, some act of ancient kindness. He’d come out of nowhere to dominate…