ESPN NBA

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

Mike Bresnahan and Broderick Turner have a piece in today's Los Angeles Times on Kobe Bryant's attachment to his portable DVD player, and his meticulous preparation: 

"Hands down, he's the biggest video fiend we've ever had," said Chris Bodaken, the Lakers' director of video services. "I didn't know if it was possible to be more competitive than Magic was, but I think he might be. It carries over into his preparation, and this is part of that."

Bodaken, 40, began working in the Lakers' editing room in 1989 as an intern and is now one of two full-time staffers who use eight digital video recorders, five laptop computers and 18 DVD burners to record, edit and copy footage for Lakers coaches and players.

NBA teams are inundated with video, part of an effort to keep up with the competition in the digital age. The Lakers' video staff has been even busier this season because Bryant, 30, has dialed up his requests after winning his first NBA most-valuable-player award.

Bryant previously studied clips from entire games, watching them at his home or on the way to home games in his car (he is typically driven by one of his bodyguards). Now his pregame routine also includes clips of individual players he will guard.

Bodaken's co-worker, Patrick O'Keefe, 28, is in charge of compiling Bryant's video montages.

After conferring with Bryant, O'Keefe takes a little more than an hour to scroll through an opponent's last few games and find key plays from the players Bryant will guard, presenting him with eight to 12 minutes of edited footage.

The goal is for Bryant to pick up tendencies of rival players. Have they added any new moves? Have they been aggressively driving to the basket or have they been satisfied to drift from the hoop and settle for outside jump shots?

Before games, Bryant slips in custom-made earpieces with "KB" monograms on each side. Then he turns on his DVD player and tries to find ways to take away comfort zones from opponents.

For the Christmas Day game against Boston, he received 12 edited minutes of three Celtics starters: Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen. Less than 48 hours later, he received 11 minutes of three Golden State players: Stephen Jackson, Kelenna Azubuike and Marco Belinelli.

"It's a blueprint," said Bryant, an eight-time member of the NBA all-defensive team. "So if something goes down, it's not something you haven't seen before. Everybody's got tendencies. If he scores 40 on Monday, he's going to try to do it on Tuesday. You've got to take him out of his spots. That's the key."

There's also this little morsel: 

When the Lakers hired Phil Jackson in 1999, Bryant was tipped off that his new coach sometimes asked video coordinators to edit random on-screen words into video packages viewed by the entire team before practice. Jackson would then ask a particular player which word just flashed on the screen, the equivalent of a pop quiz for multi-millionaire athletes.