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SALT LAKE CITY — Hanging on to the last days of his playing career in the NBA, Larry Krystkowiak called the Los Angeles Lakers to ask for a contract with the team.
The Lakers were injury-riddled and had several of their bigs sidelined by injury, and Krystkowiak thought he could fill a void. Days earlier he had gotten married and was without a guaranteed contract after nine years in the league.
Del Harris, then coach of the Lakers and a former coach of Krystkowiak when he played in Milwaukee, agreed to sign him to a couple 10-day contracts, where he would join the Lakers for approximately three weeks. The year happened to be the rookie season of Kobe Bryant.
“It was very much a joke, but within an hour, I had a ticket booked and I was going to try to pass a physical, so I played almost three weeks there — I think about 11 games," Krystkowiak said.
Krystkowiak and Bryant didn’t interact much, but the two shared a unique bond: next to their name on a couple games read DNP-CD or “did not play - coach’s decision.” The two were on opposite ends of the spectrum, though. Bryant was the fresh-faced star that spurned college to play with the Lakers and Krystkowiak was holding onto his dream of playing professionally.
In an effort to keep a spot on the roster, Krystkowiak wanted to be the first person in the gym and the last to leave — put in the work — but he always lost out to the young Bryant. It’s a story familiar for most people that tried to compete against Bryant’s work ethic — and Bryant always came out on top.
“He was pretty impressive,” Krystkowiak said Monday, sitting in front of a Bryant jersey he adorned over a lectern. “He was just a young kid and I was, obviously, at the other end of the spectrum. When you're part of that, even though my role was very minimal, you still put on a Laker uniform.
“I was No. 7, and I just remember enjoying that run with those guys and your teammates,” he added. “Short of that, there wasn't a whole lot of interaction, it was kind of a new thing for me being on a new squad and freshly married and Del Harris, just said after the fact, he said ‘that's kind of my wedding gift to you.’ So it was a heck of a gesture and it gave me an opportunity to be a part of it.”
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Donovan Mitchell turned on his Xbox to try and get his mind off the news. Ed Davis went home and hugged his family, cherishing the moments a little more. Quin Snyder just tried to process it all.The short stint with the Lakers, and Bryant, left an impression on Krystkowiak, who is currently in his ninth season at Utah. He said the news of Bryant’s tragic death Sunday in a helicopter crash, and that of his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven other passengers, was similar to how he felt on 9/11.
“It just hits you in the gut,” he said.
But similar to how the country came together following the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, Krytstkowiak believes Bryant’s death could bring the country together.
“I've gotten so many texts on the Kobe front about 'hug your kids,'” he said. “Unfortunately it takes things like this, where you kind of open your eyes and you sit back and you go: 'you know what?' It brings everybody together and I just think, you never want somebody to leave too early, but Kobe was always motivational and inspirational and he loved to tell stories. And my sense is that this could actually, this tragedy, not just he but his daughter and the other people involved, could bring everybody together.
“Maybe the world can be a better place without Kobe, unfortunately, if we all approach it the right way.”
The Utah basketball program, like many around the country, took the news hard of their idol’s death, but Krystkowiak hopes the news acts as a groundswell of support: “to me, we should be playing for Kobe.”
“Sometimes we get caught up in sports, and I think there's a great responsibility for our coaching staff, athletic director, president, everybody, we all know what our job is to win games, but we also take it pretty seriously that there's another side to it,” he added. “The compassion side, the people side, and making sure we learn how to treat people right and work really hard and know that in the big scheme of things, basketball games and even a career is a really little speck in the whole scheme of things.”
