Kobe Bryant: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1998

[During the 1997 playoffs, Kobe Bryant was a bouncy 18-year-old rookie with boundless self-confidence. His me-against-the-world turned out to be a good and a bad thing. The bad was his two infamous airballs late in overtime of the deciding game of the Lakers-Jazz conference semifinals series, won by Utah in five games. 

“My bad . . . my bad,” Bryant repo…