It seemed like an unusual search for inspiration.
Earlier this season, UCLA coach Mick Cronin told his players to Google “Kobe Bryant rookie airballs.”
The first YouTube video that showed up was footage of the Lakers guard shooting four airballs during a 1997 playoff loss to Utah.
“They were all right on line,” the late Bryant said in an interview accompanying the video, “but they were short. I gotta get stronger.”
Jerry West, the former Lakers executive who orchestrated the trade to acquire Bryant’s NBA draft rights, called it the defining moment of Bryant’s Hall of Fame career because “that’s one of the things that spurred him to greatness.