88 newyork| february17–march1, 2020
didn’t know who Kobe was,” Terren Frank
said, speaking literally. (Sierra Canyon’s JV
team has a player named Kobe.) The day
had been complicated at Sierra Canyon by
an internet rumor that Gigi was a student
there, and news trucks had shown up on
campus that morning. The Bryant family
lives two hours away, in Orange County, but
Sierra Canyon’s status as the school of
choice for the children of L.A.’s elite athletes
made the rumor seem briefly plausible. “I
ask myself, Where did that come from?,”
Skrumbis said. “There’s a racial component
to it, right? Kobe’s rich, famous, and black,
so his daughter must have gone to Sierra
Canyon or is going to transfer there and
bring all the players on his club team there.”
That afternoon, Chevalier stopped the
varsity practice after an hour so heand the
team could join LeBron in supporting the
seventh-graders. After a strong drive from
one player, Zaire Wade leaped out of the
stands and flexed his biceps, leaving the
middle schooler to do his best to keep from
smiling and looking over at theslightly
older but much more famous boys cheer-
ing him on. “Who the fuck is that?,” Wade
said, impressed. “Why isn’t he on varsity?”
Chevalier had already considered the idea,
but he had also done his research and had
reservations. “We look at the kid’s parents,”
he said, noting that mom’s and dad’s
heights aren’t promising—the kid might
never grow tall enough to star in the post.
“Realistically, he’s a guard for us.”
As Wade watched the game, a thought
seemed to dawn on him. “Bronny, you
gonna play with Bryce?,” he asked, about
LeBron’s younger son. The James brothers
will in fact be fellow high schoolers, and
Sierra Canyon was preparing. Richard
Shapiro, the CFO, was already fielding
inquiries about the team’s futureappear-
ances and thought the opportunities might
be even bigger with two Jameses.When I
asked Rock Pillsbury, who at one point
referred to Bronny as a “rookie,” what his
hopes are for the athletic department
going forward, he compared it to an enter-
prise that had suddenly become flush. “It’s
like we’ve got a business with $100 million
in earnings, and this year we made $200
million,” he said. “Now the hard part is try-
ing to stay there.”
The next night, Sierra Canyon’s varsity
had its final home game of the season at
the Feinberg Family Pavilion. It was Senior
Night for six of the players, who had spent
an average of three semesters on campus.
The school managed to turn out a decent
student section in part by bribingthe kids
with a wristband that entitled them to
“free dress” the following day, which meant
they could break the school’s dress code
and wear a tee instead of a collared shirt.
In the locker room before the game, Che-
valier went over the team’s game plan and
pointed to the phrase mamba mentality
written on a whiteboard. “Honor Kobe
tonight by the way that you guys play,” he
said. Bronny, only a grade older than Gigi,
had written mambacita and rip gigi in
marker on his shoes.
The Lakers had postponed their game
that night, which meant LeBron would
have a chance to do what Kobe had come
to enjoy most in retirement. Just before
tip-off, he walked into the gym wearing a
Sierra Canyon hoodie; hugged David Fiz-
dale, the recently fired Knicks coach, who
had come to witness the show; and took a
seat next to his wife, Savannah.Shortly
after the game started, with the action at
the other end of the court, LeBron
shouted his son’s name to get his atten-
tion, then tossed a bottle of Fiji water to
him across the court like a bowling ball—
an apparent attempt at encouraging
proper hydration.
The game was close in the first half, but
Sierra Canyon quickly took over. After
throwing down a dunk on a fast break,
Zaire Wade grabbed his jersey and yanked
it across his chest in an homage to one of
Kobe’s signature celebrations. Bronny
James entered the game late in the first
quarter to heckling from the Campbell Hall
fans but quickly delivered two assists and a
strip that led to an easy dunk for one of his
teammates. It was the kind of quiet role his
father had imagined for him as a
freshman—until it wasn’t. In the third
quarter, Bronny faked left on an inbounds
play, then cut right, leaving his defender
behind and leaping into the air to catch a
pass from B. J. Boston. His mother and
father leaped out of their seats as their son
slammed the ball home. The highlight later
made SportsCenter’s Top 10, and as Bronny
walked off the court, LeBron hugged his son
and put him in a headlock.
LeBron had to escape the gymquickly
before the fans engulfed him, buteventu-
ally, the crowd dispersed, which let the
Sierra Canyon players make their way
back onto the court. Boston walked
around holding a girl’s hand. One player
asked another if they were going to In-N-
Out. Williams mingled with his parents,
an uncle, and two great aunts, until one of
the documentary crews intruded on the
family gathering. “The camerapeople
always come out and ruin our party,” his
father joked. The kids were trying to be
kids amid the hoopla, and Bronnymade it
clear that his priorities are the same as any
15-year-old’s. He wanted to knowwhat he
could wear to school tomorrow and yelled
out to no one in particular, “Do players get
free dress too?” ■
S
hortlyafterclasseslet outon
Monday, January 27 —whileseveral
packsof SierraCanyonstudentsgath-
eredundera staircase,playinggames
ontheiriPhones,andSUVsandTeslasmade
theirwaytothefrontofthepickupline—
LeBronJamesquietlyenteredthebackof
theFeinbergFamilyPavilionandtooka seat
ona foldingchair.Sierra Canyon’sseventh-
gradeboys’basketballteam,includinghis
youngerson,BryceMaximusJames,was
aboutto playCampbellHall,anotherprivate
schoolintheValley. It hadbeenhard for
LeBrontocatchmany ofhissons’games,
given that his playing schedule overlaps with
theirs. He’d managed to see Bronny play in
Springfield, Massachusetts, a week earlier by
rushing there from Boston, where the Lakers
were playing the Celtics the same night. “I
would break every routine in my life for my
family,” he said at the time.
At Sierra Canyon, LeBron wore sun-
glasses, a Sierra Canyon sweatshirt, and a
cap printed with the phrase more than an
athlete. The previous day, Kobe Bryant
and his daughter Gigi had died alongside
seven others in a helicopter crash in Calaba-
sas. The night before that, LeBron had
passed Kobe for third place on the NBA’s
all-time scoring list while wearing black
sneakers on which he had written mamba 4
life. It had been more than 24 hours since
the crash, and James still hadn’t spoken
publicly. He was subdued while watching
his younger son, nodding politely when he
nailed a step-back jump shot—a Kobe spe-
cialty. (LeBron had showcased exemplary
parental affirmation earlier, when he
declared he had only “the third-best jump
shot in the household. Bryce Maximus got a
cooker too!”)
In retirement, Kobe had begun to navi-
gate the NBA- Hollywood nexus better than
anyone, winning an Oscar in 2018, and all
of L.A. and much of the country joined the
NBA in mourning. The documentary crew
from LeBron’s company was called into
action on their off day to film the scene at
the school, and while Bronny James and
Zaire Wade had grown up with the Bryants
as family friends, the other Sierra Canyon
players also seemed moved by his death.
“There was never a time in my life when I
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