Kobe Bryant's new ESPN show 'Detail' will analyze NBA playoffs through intense film study

Sam Amick | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption NBA playoff matchups are officially set The 2017-18 NBA regular season has come to an end. Here's a look at which teams are facing off in the opening round of the playoffs.

Kobe Bryant had always paid attention to film.

He watched it every so often growing up in Italy, where his father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, played professionally and his only son learned tricks of the trade. He was a student of the game when his hoops rise began at Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia, and stayed that way for nearly a quarter century until his Hall of Fame career was over.

But when it comes to poring over game tape – a habit that will be featured on his new ESPN+ show, “Detail,” that debuts on Thursday on the new streaming service and will run throughout the NBA playoffs – he didn’t truly embrace the practice until Phil Jackson and Tex Winter came along during his fourth season with the Lakers.

“I always had (that habit), so when Phil and (Lakers assistant coach) Tex came they helped me see the game in totality – the entire chess board,” Bryant told USA TODAY Sports. “Growing up overseas, I was watching film at the smallest level, watching players, and watching their feet and watching the angles and trying to figure out like why this move works, why this move didn't work.”

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While Bryant’s slow start is sometimes forgotten, his emergence wasn’t in full swing until after those three seasons with coach Del Harris at the helm. Winter, who brought the vaunted triangle offense to Laker Land after spending nine seasons with Jackson during his Chicago Bulls tenure in which they won six titles, challenged Bryant to take his mental game to the next level.

“I sat down with Tex and watched every game of our entire first season together, from the preseason all the way through the Finals (win over Indiana in six games),” Bryant said. “And it was his mission to get me to see every little nuance and every little detail, and he watched the game at such a level that it was like he was picking up on things that were just incomprehensible, I think, for most players to even look at it.”

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Nineteen years later, Bryant has decided to share this skill with the basketball-loving world. And the show’s format, as Bryant explained, will involve him taking viewers through the process of breaking down film and solving the playoff puzzle.

There are 15 episodes of hoops analysis scheduled, with Bryant credited as the writer, producer and host. The venture is a partnership between ESPN and Bryant’s Granity Studios. Seven of those episodes are planned for the Finals.

“In the world of media today, with all this click-bait going on, and when people talk about basketball -- the playoffs, in particular -- they keep it on a very superficial level, right?” Bryant said. “This player's not passing the ball here. I think this team will win because they have more size, or I think this team will win because they're faster, or this team will win because they're better shooters. But nobody is looking at why things happen, right? And so, from that standpoint, I said, 'Ok, well how did I used to study film?' I used to break down film in a very, very specific way in order to win a game in the playoffs.”

“So I actually created a show that was just that. If I took on the personality of James Harden, of Steph Curry, DeMar DeRozan, whoever. If I was them and we just played Game 1, I go home and I watch Game 1, (so) what am I learning from that? What would I be studying for that to get ready for Game 2? That's what this show is.”

Bryant’s only regret about the show? That it wasn’t around when he was a kid.

“If this show was around then, if Magic (Johnson) was doing a show like this or (Larry) Bird was doing a show like this, and I was digesting this content at 11, 12 years old?” he said. “I'm gaining this high level of information at that age, (so) what is my level of insight going to be at 25? Where am I going to take the game then? So, that's the hope.”

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