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So today is different and everyone knows why the tragic death of Kobe Bryant on Sunday. And normally this is always the Chris Long, Ryan Russell show.

And we put together this idea of doing some kind of just off topic things. It just didn't feel right today. And we're going to go ahead and just do a straightforward super bowl podcast that's going to come out on Wednesday.

Today I'm headed out of Miami late Tuesday night. I get in really, really late like Wednesday morning almost. So I'll be there for a few days doing some of the ranger stuff and that's the plan. And we'll have one more podcast. We'll have three this week scheduled for the Ryan Russell show.

Today's game plan Mike Toreco who called Kobe's final game is going to join us in ESPN's re-airing that final game at nine Eastern. And then we're going to talk with Bobby Marks who was in the Netsfront office and was sent out on a scouting assignment to watch a high school Kobe Bryant before that draft in 1996.

But I'm going to start with this week's open. The Kobe story is unbelievably sad. It's tragic. It's all of those things. And I'm sad probably like a lot of you were sad where it's.

Oh, that's an awful story. I didn't know him. I interviewed him. I think once. And it was with Van Pell. And that was really the only reason we got him. It's kind of a fun little back and forth.

And everybody processes stuff differently. And I do think that being sad on TV or radio. I mean, that's the way you feel it's the way you feel. And it's not that I'm sad. I just want to do something a little different and talk about him and his story and kind of the three part deal where it was him at the beginning.

And then he's the player and then him at the end of his career. And you know, it's one of those deals where every one of us you listening right now Kobe fan or not a Kobe fan. You're going to remember where you were when you got that news because I got a text from somebody the screenshot the TMZ Kobe Bryant dead helicopter crash. And I'm like, no way.

Not Kobe Bryant like that's this guy's invincible like that's not going to happen. It's like that line from Donnie Brasco where they're like, how does John Wayne die like that doesn't happen. And so as the news filter through the day and you're wherever you are and it probably stalled you a little bit.

And you don't have to be a father to feel terrible about all the news that kept coming out and learning more and more about him losing his daughter, the other families involved.

It's just awful. It goes without saying. I mean, every one of us, you know, we have a really weird thing in this society where we can be really vicious. But we also are incredibly compassionate and we're immediately compassionate and almost overwhelmingly so.

So, so, you know, most people are sad today. I don't I don't think that that's that's necessarily breaking news.

But I remember the first time I heard about Kobe and this is really what I wanted to focus on today. And I remember the first time I heard about him because I was a huge draft guy, even when I wasn't a draft guy.

I was just a kid in college. I was 20 years old in 1996. And I love the NBA draft from whenever I could first remember. I don't even know why.

You know, I would get the newspaper and then I would write it out in my little notebook. I would write down all the picks and order when I already had it right there in the newspaper, but I just like doing it. So I just always love the draft. Okay.

The draft is my favorite day of the year. It just I love it. And when Kevin Garnett came out of high school the year prior.

The Garnett story was, who does this guy think he is? Right. Like he can't do this. A lot of very outdated things.

Things that became immediately wrong. Well, I would say at least halfway through Garnett's first season, you know what? It would have been a sin to not let this guy play in the NBA right away.

He was the first high school guy to do the jump in a long time. There have been a handful of others that had done it. If you go back to the pre NBA, a major basically the reason the NBA changed their early withdrawal rules or their early entry into the draft rules is because the NBA was going to go ahead and do it.

And in the NBA before they they lightened up the rules, the NBA had a thing where you actually had to apply for a financial hardship waiver to be able to leave college early.

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