48 Minutes with J.A. Adande on Kobe Bryant and much more!

0:00 ... Ross hello and welcome .... intros co-hosts Bruce Bernstein and Michael "World B" Freer

0:41 ... Episode #140 is dedicated to Kurt "Crazy Eyes" Thomas, who wore #40 in his NBA career

0:53 ... Ross teases teases special guest J.A. Adande who will join the show to reflect on a solemn basketball anniversary.

1:30 ... Ross does the Bet Online live commercial read.

2:06 ... Bruce introduces J.A. and shares some of his legendary achievements

3:20 ... J.A. points out that Bruce's son Mitch Bernstein was also a close friend and roommate during his internship in LA a number of years ago.

4:03 ... Bruce asks J.A. about the fires in his native Southern California and how they have affected the psyche of the entire region and J.A. has great perspective on the catastrophe and how it affected many who were close to him.

6:49 ... Ross teases the deep dive on Kobe Bryant but asks J.A. about being honored as the winner of the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame and what it was like to be considered an all-time great in basketball journalism.

9:12 ... World B asks J.A. about those who influenced him the most as a writer. J.A. mentioned Jim Murray, David Aldridge, Mike Wilbon, and many others.

11:17 ... Bruce raises the name of Chris Ramsay from ESPN.com, a mutual friend of J.A. and Bruce's who was a key person in J.A.'s success.

13:00 ... Bruce asks J.A. about all the ESPN people who have won the Gowdy award and if they had anything in common regarding the way they covered the league. Fellow winner Marc Spears gets a shout out for his wise counsel at Hall of Fame weekend.

16:10 ... World B asks J.A. what it was like to be a prominent panelist on ESPN's Around The Horn and how it had a powerful impact on his life and career.

18:47 ... Ross and Bruce provide some stats about Around The Horn and Ross receives permission from J.A. to mute his co-hosts as Tony Reali has done to ATH panelists for many years.

19:57 ... Ross points out that January 26th is the 5 year anniversary of Kobe Bryant's death and J.A. shares where he was when he heard the news and his immediate reaction upon hearing of Kobe's death.

23:55 ... J.A. puts into perspective why Los Angeles loved Kobe the man as much as they loved him as an athlete. The way he embraced LA and knew all the different neighborhoods were huge reasons.

27:03 ... Kobe was known to do research on people he would meet for the first time in order to put them at ease. But while J.A. never witnessed that, he praised Kobe for the way he handled his relationships with members of the local media. J.A. said that in the age of social media, modern athletes put less emphasis on those relationships.

29:19 ... Kobe and Michael Jordan were similar in many ways and J.A. explains that it was both a conscious effort on Kobe's part and simply a matter of MJ and Kobe being cut from the same cloth. J.A. feels that eventually Kobe came to regret those comparisons.

32:16 ... Was there one moment from Kobe's career that stood out to J.A.? Well ... there were a few! The game 7 comeback vs Portland in 2000 was memorable because of Kobe's giddiness.

35:24 ... Bruce's favorite Kobe/J.A. moment was from an NBA Coast to Coast show in Kobe's final season and J.A. describes what happened that night. J.A. uses that incident in his current job as a journalism professor at Northwestern as a teachable moment for his students.

38:49 ... Bruce asks about LeBron James and whether he has begun to mentally check out now that he has played an NBA game with his son Bronny. J.A. thinks it is possible because there is really nothing left to achieve.

40:30 ... J.A. makes his predictions for the rest of the season .. OKC wins the west, Boston wins the east, and Boston wins the championship.

42:19 ... Bruce asks J.A. if he is getting the "1995 Rockets vibe" about the Celtics where a defending champion looks less than dominant in the regular season but ends up repeating due to their "heart of a champion?"

43:43 ... Ross wonders if J.A. has any feeling on who the next "American face" of the league might be ... or even if there will be one?

47:58 ... If J.A. were starting his career over again, which player would he want to cover the most? LeBron James might be the guy. Michael Jordan too.

50:33 ... Ross thanks J.A. ... who thanks Bruce for helping him make some money working in TV! And we'll see you next week!

TRT 51:17

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.