Kobe Bryant

[NewEra]

Saw this on another site, and I'll basically post what I saw... (Sorry if it's a little long, but I'd really appreciate it if you could help).

If you don't know much about him, I'm putting in some excerpts from a couple of links on him:

Article #1: Kobe Off the Court -

They look at Kobe's antisocial behavior--declining to join in his teammates' pregame war chants, refusing to hang out with his fellow Lakers after a game--and ask themselves what went wrong. Could Kobe have somehow avoided the situation he's in now if only he'd taken his place in the circle of his peers, instead of standing apart from them?

Even in high school, Bryant could be a loner. Having grown up with his parents and two older sisters in Europe, where his father played pro ball for an Italian team, Kobe had a difficult time adjusting to life in the States when he returned at the age of 14. "It was tough because I didn't know English really well, and I really didn't know the different lingo that black culture had," Bryant told NEWSWEEK in a lengthy 1999 interview. "So I had to learn two languages when I got back here, and that was tough. But if I didn't do it, I would have never fit in. And kids are tough, you know? You got to be just like them or else."
...
Jocelyn Ebron didn't see any of those defects when she met young Kobe at a family barbecue she'd been invited to by his cousin. "He was just this mild-mannered, quiet guy," remembers Jocelyn, who was attending a Roman Catholic girls' school at the time. "I liked him because he wasn't a playa with a lot of game. You know, the kind of guy who's trying to date 10 girls at the same time and be so cool."

His rookie season ended on an especially sour note when, in the last game of the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, Bryant got the pass and shot an air ball like no other. He returned with his family to Philly for the summer to lick his wounds. "He would keep saying, 'They already hate me'," Ebron recalls. " 'Now they just hate me more'. "

Bryant decided to suck it up and use the failure as motivation. He spent the summer adding muscles to his lanky frame, and claimed he was making 1,000 practice shots a day to avoid ever missing another one. When he returned to L.A., he even extended an olive branch to O'Neal and the rest of the team, inviting them to his 19th- birthday party. But back on the court, not much had changed. "Kobe is the kind of guy who has to learn the same lesson again every season," says a former teammate. Bryant's ball-hogging and headstrong play grated on O'Neal so much that at one practice he finally let loose and knocked Bryant to the floor. The two went at it and had to be broken up. "I think he really thought he could take Shaq," a player who witnessed the incident says, laughing. "I have to give him that: he has no fear of anything."

After that incident, Bryant continued isolating himself. On rare occasions he would take in a movie with Derek Fisher or Travis Knight, generally considered the nicest men on the team. Fisher himself was no party animal; he preferred reading his Bible in the locker room and praying with the team chaplain. Yet he'd found a way to fit in, going to dinners with the team, but often skipping the club scene. Bryant never seemed to see that as an option, and other players interpreted it as arrogance. "He's never really been a guy to hang out, not even in high school," says Mobley, who knew Bryant in Philly. "He's a private dude and I think many guys just didn't understand that. And when you add that he wasn't from the inner city, like most of us, they really didn't understand him. And what you don't understand, you don't like."

That cuts both ways. To Bryant's mind, he was doing himself a favor by not hanging out with his teammates. "I would never get into trouble like Mike Tyson," he once declared to some fellow Lakers. "It was important to him not to be viewed as a typical NBA player," says Bryant's friend Steve Stoute, a former music executive he met during his second season. In fact, Kobe may have missed out on some valuable career advice he'd never get from Jerry West. NBA players, like rock stars, have lots of groupies, and it isn't unusual to find plenty of action after the game. But there are also rules of conduct off the court, and players usually swap the do's and don'ts over dinner after a game. Rule No. 1: Let your crew approach the woman first, to size her up. One baller makes his bodyguards spell out in plain language to potential one-night-stands what the night's activities will entail. If she hesitates, she's turned away. Rule No. 2: Give nice parting gifts. One NBA star is known to travel with a treasure chest of diamond tennis bracelets to hand to conquests in appreciation.

Not that Bryant needed tennis bracelets back then. After things fizzled with Brandy, he developed crushes on several other black starlets, from supermodel Tyra Banks to Destiny's Child members Kelly Rowland and Beyonce Knowles. He even sent roses to Venus Williams when she won her first Wimbledon championship. But there were no real sparks. "He would get frisky with me and wanted to go all the way, but he knew what 'no' meant," says one of the stars he dated. "He understood it clearly. I can't see him now not knowing the difference."

Bryant didn't make any friends on the team by challenging Shaq, and it didn't help that he preferred early on to change away from the others in the locker room and disappear under his headphones in the back of the team plane. After games on the road, instead of hanging out with the team, he would sit in his room and watch videos. Sometimes it was "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," which his mother would slip into his bag when she packed it for away games. But he would also catch movies his parents never let him see at home, R-rated stuff like "Scarface" and "The Godfather."

As disapproving as school officials were, it was nothing compared with the disappointment of Bryant's family, who watched as Kobe became "unnaturally attached" to Vanessa, as one family friend put it.
...
Kobe didn't talk to his family again until September 11, 2001, when he called his mother to make sure they were all safe. His mother tried to play peacemaker by inviting Kobe and Vanessa for dinner during the holidays in Philadelphia, but Vanessa hedged, and Kobe declined. The following February, the couple went to Philadelphia for the All-Star Game. His old high school used the occasion to retire his jersey, and his parents attended the Friday-night ceremony, sitting on the opposite side of the auditorium from his wife. They never made eye contact. The family didn't attend Sunday's All-Star Game, where Bryant was booed by the East Coast crowd when he was named MVP of the game. He seemed close to tears, and would later say his family's absence hurt as much as the crowd's reaction.

Article 2: Kobe's killer instinct - Kobe's killer instinct - Chris Ballard - SI.com

As you may have noticed, though, Bryant isn't big on tact. Time and again over the last decade he has announced the particulars of his awesomeness. As teammate Luke Walton dryly puts it, "Kobe does not lack for confidence."

In 2002 Bryant said, "There's only two real killers in this league," meaning himself and Michael Jordan. Well, now there is only one.
...
Because Kobe is Kobe, however, he cannot (or will not) soften his edge, the way Jordan did with his buddy-buddy NBA friendships, his who-would-have-thunk smirk or his endorsa-riffic smile. With Bryant, it manifests itself during practice, during games, during summer workouts, during conversation.

Bryant repeatedly forces him to play one-on-one after practice -- Bryant wins, of course -- to reinforce his alpha alpha male status. When six-time All-Star guard Mitch Richmond arrives the next year, he gets the same. "He was the man, and he wanted us to know it," says Richmond. "He was never mean or personal about it, it's just how he was."
...
G.M.'s, coaches and scouts cite only a few others who have a similar drive -- Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Manu Ginóbili, Steve Nash, Chris Paul and Deron Williams -- though they make clear that none of those stars are in Kobe's league. (In an SI poll earlier this season Bryant was a runaway winner as the opponent players feared most, at 35%.)
...
Even some of the great ones lacked it. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says that when he was young, rather than challenging everyone as Kobe does, he "just wanted peace." "I think it's a quirk of personality," says Abdul-Jabbar. "Some of us are like Napoleon, and some are Walter Mitty."

This is a guy who, according to Nike spokesperson KeJuan Wilkins, had the company shave a couple of millimeters off the bottom of his signature shoe because "in his mind that gave him a hundredth of a second better reaction time." A guy who has played the last three months with a torn ligament in the pinkie of his shooting hand. A guy who, says teammate Coby Karl, considers himself "an expert at fouling without getting called for it." (Watch how Bryant uses the back of his hand, not the front, to push off on defenders and a closed-fist forearm to exert leverage.) A guy who says of being guarded by the physical Bowen, "It'll be fun" -- and actually means it. A guy who, no matter what he does, will never get the chance to play the one game he'd die for: Bryant versus Jordan, each in his prime. "There'd be blood on the floor by the end," says Winter, who has coached them both.

To summarize:
- Very confident with his ability
- Not afraid
- Didn't hang out with teammates/friends much at all
- Loves basketball
- Extremely diligent
- Very competitive and driven
- Didn't talk with his family for a long time after they didn't approve of his relationship with Vanessa
- Said his feelings were hurt at the All-Star game in Philadelphia (his home town) because of the crowd booing him even in an All-Star game
- Ruthless, relentless
- Feels he's the best, wants others to know


So what MBTI type do you think this guy is? Thanks.

 

[Nonsensical]

ISTJ

 

[NewEra]

ISTJ

Thanks. Anyone else have an idea too?

 

[Cimarron]

I do think the article is trying to portray him as an ISTJ. And I have nothing else to go on, so maybe.

 

[sleuthiness]

I think he's istp. His wife is a loony enfp.

 

[the state i am in]

istj. mj is istp. istp make better ballers. isfj the worst (see yao ming, tracy mcgrady, etc).

 

[Dali]

I'd go with ISTP.

 

[NewEra]

I think he's istp.

I'd go with ISTP.

Just curious, where's the P in him? I'm not seeing it. The guy spews introverted feeling.

 

[sleuthiness]

You aren't around to dispute my opinion, but for the heck of it...

I still can't imagine Bryant as a judger. istjs are wrapped up in upholding their motheaten moral values, and though he's a big fucking jerk like a lot of cops, the image he projects has everything to do with his obsession to be like Mike. Really, name one istj who comes close on the eager-meter, as far as launching as many last shots. How many of your istj friends are trying to earn free money on facebook?

 

[the state i am in]

istj 6w5 sx/sp (or sp/sx?) very unhealthy, disintegrating to 3

 

[Ratsimoan]

intj

 

[KDude]

Kobe was typed as ISFP in his younger years by that sports MBTI guy, Jon Neidnagel (he also was involved with Celtics scouts, and typed Paul Pierce as one.. just for comparison).. Niednagel even tried to warn Jerry West to not get his hopes up about Bryant being the next Jordan.. he mistakenly thought that he was moodier and too soft to be clutch. Besides that, he did exude a lot of that SFP Magic like demeanor that I could see similarities (One glance between him and ISTP-Jordan would show the difference between their general attitude...and even Jordan spotting the difference in Kobe's mental game there. Here's another later interview for reference..he talks like a Se performer there. Not a TJ).

Somewhere along the line though, Neidnagel has been proven wrong, Kobe is actually a pretty tough leader (maybe not always constructive as one either..he flies off the handle and gets overly harsh about his own teammates', for one), different than what he was as a younger guy, so I could believe he's grown somewhat into ISTP or even ESFP who have an easier time exerting their Te. Personally, it wears me out to be like that, but it's not beyond me either. Heh. IxTJ though is Phil Jackson, if anyone -and he's somebody a lot more comfortable and mature being that way too. Lastly, if he doesn't fit some kind of sensitive F artist stereotype enough, then he's worked with Shepherd Fairey and that guy talked about being surprised that Kobe is somewhat of an artist. Same with Nike people who talk about Kobe's design skills. Something to consider at least.

If his wife is a crazy ENFP, that just makes her a semi-dual. Not a bad arrangement. We all like crazy ENFP chicks

 

[sleuthiness]

Kobe was typed as ISFP in his younger years by that sports MBTI guy, Jon Neidnagel (he also was involved with Celtics scouts, and typed Paul Pierce as one.. just for comparison).. Niednagel even tried to warn Jerry West to not get his hopes up about Bryant being the next Jordan.. he mistakenly thought that he was moodier and too soft to be clutch. Besides that, he did exude a lot of that SFP Magic like demeanor that I could see similarities (One glance between him and ISTP-Jordan would show the difference between their general attitude...and even Jordan spotting the difference in Kobe's mental game there. Here's another later interview for reference..he talks like a Se performer there. Not a TJ).

If his wife is a crazy ENFP, that just makes her a semi-dual. Not a bad arrangement. We all like crazy ENFP chicks

Someone agrees with me that he's at least an sp, jesus.

I think his F is way too playful to be introverted, just a mask for his upper functions (especially that intensely creative side).

Still stuck on istp. He has a relation of benefit happening with Phil, who is an intj. But can anyone rationally explain his relation with enfj fisher?

 

[KDude]

Interesting points.. I think ISFPs are plenty playful in their F though. Especially in fresh or new places, where we can be... a little cute and giddy, if I had to say it. xD That's my take at least. From what I can tell, we're different than INFP (I don't know enough outside of here to really say though). And ISTP is a bit hard to warm up like that.. That's Jordan, Bird, Shaq, McGrady.

 

[sleuthiness]

Interesting points.. I think ISFPs are plenty playful in their F though. Especially in fresh or new places, where we can be... a little cute and giddy, if I had to say it. xD That's my take at least. From what I can tell, we're different than INFP (I don't know enough outside of here to really say though). And ISTP is a bit hard to warm up like that.. That's Jordan, Bird, Shaq, McGrady.

His T seems to be pulling the rest of his cabooses. If there's ever a situation that requires spontaneous, split-second decisions that require near-perfect physical coordination, who do you turn to?

Durant is the only isfp in my short-term memory who I know is counted on in the clutch.

Agreed on the first two.

What do you think about Shaq as esfp and McG as isfp?

 

[KDude]

If there's ever a situation that requires spontaneous, split-second decisions that require near-perfect physical coordination, who do you turn to?

Se. Percieving. That's the mistake many people make. Even some of my fellow STPs..hijacking ability in the badass stuff because they're T or something.

 

[the state i am in]

His T seems to be pulling the rest of his cabooses. If there's ever a situation that requires spontaneous, split-second decisions that require near-perfect physical coordination, who do you turn to?

Durant is the only isfp in my short-term memory who I know is counted on in the clutch.

Agreed on the first two.

What do you think about Shaq as esfp and McG as isfp?

isfps can be awesome at rising to the moment, but they need to be in the flow.

dwade, for instance, who is as clutch as they come. it's still different vs an istp who just doesn't stop coming flow or not (see: jordan, jkidd, gnobili, rondo, etc).

other isfps who can rise:
pierce
billups is better in the clutch than throughout the rest of the game
durant definitely
baron davis was better in the clutch than throughout the rest of the game

i'm sure there's more. i have lebron typed as infp 4. Fi just needs to be feeling it to really resonate and maximize its energy/focus.

kobe does not have Fe at all. he has to try so hard to communicate. his gestures most often rub people the wrong way, feel completely forced, seem inauthentic/fake. he doesn't have any attentiveness to/awareness of the Fe signals.

 

[sleuthiness]

isfps can be awesome at rising to the moment, but they need to be in the flow.

dwade, for instance, who is as clutch as they come. it's still different vs an istp who just doesn't stop coming flow or not (see: jordan, jkidd, gnobili, rondo, etc).

other isfps who can rise:
pierce
billups is better in the clutch than throughout the rest of the game
durant definitely
baron davis was better in the clutch than throughout the rest of the game

i'm sure there's more. i have lebron typed as infp 4. Fi just needs to be feeling it to really resonate and maximize its energy/focus.

kobe does not have Fe at all. he has to try so hard to communicate. his gestures most often rub people the wrong way, feel completely forced, seem inauthentic/fake. he doesn't have any attentiveness to/awareness of the Fe signals.

Pierce is another isfp, yep. Wade, too.

Jordan and Kidd are istps, agreed.

That Larry King interview with gaga helped reshape my understanding of the differences between isfps & istps, so with those new ideas in mind, Billups does seem to be a feeler. Wish that could be confirmed. I think that simply because entj stephen a. smith spent an entire interview kissing his butt that it had to be a supervisor relation.

I have, however
Davis at enfp (a la Arenas)
Ginobili at entp (a la Udrih)
and Ronds at enfp, albeit quiet one.

I still consider leBron an estp.

A younger istp brother of mine reminds me so (sooooooooooo, as you'd put it) much of kobe that it's scary. He's every bit as introverted - also struggles with verbalizing his thoughts, more like his beliefs - to the point at which it gets a bit ridiculous how distorted his worldview is. Example: he had this obsession for wood coathangers. There'd be a layer of laundry a foot deep in his room, but every clean shirt had one. He even gave me a mini lesson on the benefits of having a perfectly ironed shirtcollar, even though he was simultaneously/unconsciously fucking himself in every other sense by playing dionysus 24/7.

We're both obstinate, unflinching, calculating, OBSERVANT to a fault (creeping up on paranoia) etc. etc... but while he's wrapped up in satisfying the senses, dressing in cool designer clothes - striving to maintain that "ideal" 3w2 lifestyle- I focus on addressing ethical/moral quandaries.

I'm going to pay closer attention to interactions/altercations with enf- types this coming season because this needs to be solved.

 

[KDude]

kobe does not have Fe at all. he has to try so hard to communicate. his gestures most often rub people the wrong way, feel completely forced, seem inauthentic/fake. he doesn't have any attentiveness to/awareness of the Fe signals.

Not exactly what you're talking about, but what would you call these types of attempts at humor? : Like Pierce here. Or Kobe here. I'm curious if that is Fi actually, or people like that are just moody ISTPs (I'm a bit undecided even on myself)? I've done stuff like that before too.. semi-competitive humor. My ego is different these days, but I've met plenty of -_- looks from friends who don't like it. I think my measure of "Fe" type of distance has been poor.

I think when non-Fe types are enjoying themselves and oriented in their experience (regardless of others), they are as inviting and communicative as Fe. I think there's a way Fi can express itself to draw people in (especially the extroverts), rather than attend to or influence per se. It's a subtle difference. And I think Kobe can be cool like that at times. He's not necessarily fake. Hard to prove that, I can't find examples now I guess for instance: Another Jordan/Kobe comparison. It's short, but he's just stoked there. Back to ISTP differences - I always saw that more toned down, more cerebral take that Jordan has to be more like ISTP (a variation of ISTP at least). More of Jordan. Kobe has a mood oriented, impressionistic way of speaking. Somewhat long interview here.

 

[wolfy]

I watched most of the videos posted. Fun way to spend the morning, I don't see why Pierce and Kobe are not isfp from the videos. As far as the competitive humour goes, sure, in those situations I would sometimes be like that. I am like that in the gym with training partners. The atmosphere is open to it...

I love the give and take of conversations. I really feel thrilled and excited learning from that intellectual energy combined with that emotional energy. It gives me a sense of the person. In any situation, I love the give and take, the playfulness and energy, the excitement and a little bit of competition, a little bit of one-upsmanship. But when it becomes abrasive and people personally attack others, I’m offended.

I really relate to this quote. It is from here.

Anyway, that is my take. Enjoyed the videos, seem isfp as far as I can tell.