Del Harris is 82, with a life in basketball so far-flung that the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame could have given him its lifetime achievement award twice over. But you know kids these days. He’s just another tall, distinguished white-haired old man.

Which is why the Texas Legends executive and former Mavs assistant amended his introduction: He was Magic’s last coach and Kobe’s first, and he was in Space Jam.

“And then I’m OK,” Harris said, chuckling.

He was OK with it until Sunday, anyway, when devastating word came that Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, had died in a helicopter crash. The news was harder still because it was personal. Harris had known him since Kobe was 4 years old. His father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, had played his final NBA season for Harris’ Houston Rockets in 1982-83 before taking his young family to Italy.

The next time Harris saw Kobe, the former was in his third season as coach of the Lakers. Kobe was a 6-6, 175-pound 18-year-old straight out of Lower Merion High School, a Philadelphia suburb. A legend was already in the making. Before the 2006 draft, Jerry West had Kobe play Michael Cooper one-on-one to test his mettle. Leaving the workout, the Logo famously said, “He’s better than anyone we have on the team right now.”

West took Kobe 13th — four spots after the Mavs’ went with Samaki Walker — to make him the first high school guard ever selected in the draft. His talent and intelligence were obvious — he was already fluent in three languages — but what set him apart was his burning ambition to be better than Michael Jordan.

So you can imagine how it went over with the rookie when his coach brought him off the bench his first two seasons. Harris had good reasons. Kobe had missed his first training camp after breaking his hand in a pick-up game. Even before his return, the Lakers were already a good team. Eddie Jones, an All-Star, played in front of Kobe, whose glorious talent was locked up in a teenager’s body with a teenager’s temperament ruling it.

A favorite story: Kobe once asked his head coach if he could take Shaquille O’Neal out of the low post and let him operate there instead. The way Kobe figured it, nobody could stop him one-on-one down low once Harris cleared the 350-pound road block.

First of all, Harris told Kobe, he wasn’t moving the big man off the block, Shaq’s mailing address for two decades.

“Number two,” Harris said, “your time will come, but it’s not now.”

Kobe didn’t see it the same way, particularly after he was voted an All-Star starter in his second year. And he didn’t even start for the Lakers! Didn’t matter that he was the sixth man on a team that won 61 games before losing in the conference finals.

Kobe became a full-time starter in his third season, but after just 12 games, Harris was gone. The job of melding the egos of Kobe and Shaq ultimately fell to Phil Jackson. The Zen Master, who once described Kobe as “aloof and apart” from teammates, won five titles with the two superstars.

Meanwhile, Harris moved on to Dallas to work under Don Nelson. Five years into Harris’ new gig, on Dec. 20, 2005, Kobe lit up the Mavs for 62 points in just three quarters of play. Only a week before, he’d gone for 43 against the Mavs.

Asked by reporters at the time what was up with the torching of the Mavs, Kobe laughed and said, “Del Harris.”

“When I was a rookie,” he explained, “I hated Del. I always said if I get a chance to get revenge, I’m going to get it.”

What was lost at the time and over the years since was that it was mostly meant as a joke.

“He pushed me back then to try to be as efficient as possible to get some minutes on the floor,” Kobe said of Harris. “I had to earn everything I got. I’m very appreciative now.”

Kobe had changed considerably since he’d played for Harris. The turning point, he said, came after rape charges by a 19-year-old in 2003. Prosecutors dropped the case against Kobe when the woman refused to testify. A lawsuit ended in a settlement.

Whatever the facts may be, a change was apparent.

“He said he had to fall back on his faith,” said Harris, an ordained minister, “and I think he did.”

Harris’ opinion was strengthened at the 2017 funeral of Frank Hamblen, a veteran NBA coach. Hamblen had worked for Harris in Milwaukee and was an assistant under Jackson in LA. Kobe and Harris counted Hamblen as a mutual friend. At the funeral, a host of NBA types attended, but it was Kobe who asked the family if he could speak.

Harris was stunned by what he heard and saw.

“It wasn’t just one thing he said, it was his presence, his aura, his presentation,” Harris said. “Like a pastor. Like he’d been doing this for years.

“It occurred to me that he’d matured in so many ways.”

Since Kobe had played for Harris, the self-centered, one-dimensional teenager had grown into a complex man of many interests and concerns. Oscar winner, children’s author, doting father.

And at 41, the road in front of him remained long and inviting. Harris knows that all too well.

“I’m twice as old as he is,” he said. “The direction he was headed, there were a lot of great things he was going to do.”

He paused.

“Someone else is going to have to pick that up now.”

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