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Hey everyone. Welcome to locked on lakers for Thursday. Brian Keminetsky and Andy Keminetsky. Andy we've got basically one more day before the circus starts again.

And with that in mind, we wanted to bring you kind of something a little different and a little special.

We spoke last week to Mike Sealski. He's a columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer and the author of a new book about Kobe Bryant. It's called The Rise.

Kobe Bryant pursuit of immortality. Really a great story about Kobe's origins and what drove him as a young guy and a young player.

A great interview. We're really happy to bring it to you. We'll do that next.

You are locked on lakers.

Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast. Part of the locked on podcast network your team every day.

Thanks to everybody for making locked on lakers. Your first listen of every day Monday through Friday. We get this thing up early for you as wherever you get your podcasts.

However you get your podcast. And so we appreciate you tuning in. Another guy with a podcast of his own. And more importantly, a book of his own is Mike Sealski.

He is author of the rise Kobe Bryant in the pursuit of immortality. The narrator and writer of the I am Kobe podcast.

He's a columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer. And he has been kind enough to give us some time to talk about the book. Mike, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it.

Brian, it's great to be with you. Thank you so much for listeners who are unaware. You actually are from that area. You were extremely aware of Kobe's career and sort of like the burgeoning guy that was Kobe Bryant.

And with that money, I want to get into the dynamic during this interview about just seeing Kobe as a kid at this origin point.

But just even going back further than that with the concept of the book, what drove you to want to focus on this as as the area to focus on with Kobe like this period in his life before he became truly Kobe Bryant.

Well, I'd always been fascinated by Kobe just as a figure and an athlete. He just seemed so complex and I didn't cover him day to day with the Lakers.

But anytime he would come to town and I would write about him, you know, in my job for the Inquirer. And I knew people in the area who were close to him.

And this was the story about Kobe that I could tell. It was a story that I knew that I grew up immersed in and that in my work environment.

I had been very, very familiar with. I was an undergraduate for instance at LaSalle University in Philadelphia when Joe Bryant was the assistant men's basketball coach there.

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