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One Week Later Evening settled over Philadelphia as Kobe drove the Land Cruiser home.
Quiet neighborhoods slipped past the windows while the familiar scent of his gym bag lingered in the cabin.
His thoughts, however, were already somewhere else.
The past week had settled into a rhythm.
Weights before sunrise.
Hours at the park.
Recovery.
Film.
Then back again.
Every day became another opportunity to close the gap between the player he remembered and the seventeen-year-old body trying to keep up with him.
Day by day, the disconnect between experience and execution disappeared.
The calibration was complete.
His body finally moved the way he remembered it should.
Every cut, every change of pace, every jumper, every defensive slide happened without conscious thought.
His instincts no longer had to wait for his body to catch up.
For the first time since waking up in 1996, he wasn’t thinking about how to play basketball.
He was simply playing it.
In the rearview mirror, his reflection caught the fading sunlight.
The face was seventeen.
The eyes belonged to someone much older.
He’d seen too many gifted players mistake talent for destiny.
Some never recovered from injuries.
Others surrounded themselves with the wrong people.
Talent opened doors.
It didn’t keep them open.
His father, mother, and sisters wouldn’t understand what he was about to do.
That was fine.
This would be the first decision he made for this life instead of the last.
In his first life, choosing an agent had felt like another step toward the NBA.
A meeting here, a recommendation there, and suddenly someone was representing your future.
Back then, basketball had been his entire focus.
Years later, he understood that some of the most important decisions of a career were made far from the court.
The streets narrowed as he pulled into his neighborhood.
Kobe eased the Land Cruiser to the curb and sat for a moment with his hands resting on the steering wheel.
In another life, he would have chosen the safe option, the agent with the biggest name and the strongest résumé.
But he hadn’t come back to play the same hand twice.
He grabbed the gym bag from the back seat, locked the car, and took the porch steps two at a time.
Inside, the smell of dinner drifted from the kitchen, accompanied by the muffled voices of his sisters.
“Kobe!” his mother called before he reached the stairs.
“Wash up.
Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.” “Be right down.” He took the stairs two at a time.
Upstairs, the light was still on in his room.
He entered, closed the door, and set the gym bag gently on the bed.
Dinner could wait a few minutes.
There was one more decision he wanted to settle before he sat down with everyone else.
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He sat cross-legged on the bed, the navy comforter bunched beneath him as the bedside lamp cast long shadows across the room.
The house had gone quiet.
Somewhere beyond the walls, the air conditioner hummed steadily, filling the silence between his thoughts.
Kobe leaned back against the headboard and stared at the ceiling.
Instead of replaying today’s games, another scouting report unfolded in his mind.
Not defenders.
Not teammates.
Agents.
He evaluated them the same way he evaluated opponents: strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, and ceilings.
Every choice carried an advantage.
Every advantage demanded a sacrifice.
David Falk came first.
The undisputed heavyweight.
Michael Jordan.
Patrick Ewing.
Alonzo Mourning.
His client list read like an All-NBA ballot.
Falk wasn’t simply an agent; he was one of the most powerful people in basketball.
Owners respected him.
Corporations competed for his attention.
If anyone could maximize Kobe’s value from the moment he entered the league, it was David Falk.
But there was a cost that came with that success.
Falk represented stars.
Kobe would simply become another one.
He would have access to the best agent in basketball but never be the only priority.
Falk’s empire had been built on volume.
His attention, no matter how valuable, was divided.
Arn Tellem came next.
Reliable.
Intelligent.
Respected.
In another life, Tellem had represented him well.
He navigated the draft, negotiated strong contracts, shielded him through difficult moments, and earned Kobe’s trust.
There was nothing wrong with choosing Arn.
For almost any player, it would have been the smartest decision available.
But Kobe wasn’t trying to recreate his first life.
He was trying to surpass it.
His mind settled on the final name.
Rob Pelinka.
No reputation.
No clients.
No negotiating history.
On paper, it was the worst choice imaginable.
Fresh out of the University of Michigan Law School, Rob had only recently graduated cum laude and begun his career as a young attorney at Mayer Brown in Chicago.
He wasn’t an agent.
He had never negotiated an NBA contract.
He didn’t have a single professional athlete depending on him.
Anyone looking at a resume would cross his name off immediately.
Kobe couldn’t.
He wasn’t choosing the young lawyer sitting behind a desk in Chicago.
He was remembering the man he had spent nearly twenty years beside.
The Rob he knew prepared harder than anyone else in the room.
Every contract.
Every endorsement.
Every negotiation.
Nothing was left to chance.
Kobe remembered late-night phone calls that became strategy sessions stretching for hours, conversations that drifted effortlessly from salary cap mechanics to branding, leadership, business, and life.
Rob listened more than he spoke.
When he finally answered, it was because he had already considered every angle.
He never stopped learning.
Never stopped asking questions.
Never stopped trying to become better than he had been the day before.
That obsession hadn’t come after success.
It had created the success.
Most seventeen-year-olds would have sprinted toward certainty.
Even his younger self had made that choice.
David Falk offered security.
Arn Tellem offered experience.
The basketball world would understand either choice.
But certainty had never been what separated legends from everyone else.
Kobe knew how quickly the world moved on.
The same people who celebrated a prodigy today would search for the next one tomorrow.
Fame was temporary.
Partnerships weren’t.
He didn’t want an agent to manage his career.
He wanted someone who would build one beside him.
Someone whose ceiling was still invisible.
David Falk had influence.
Arn Tellem had experience.
Rob had something neither of them possessed.
Room to grow.
To everyone else, Rob Pelinka was an unknown lawyer.
To Kobe, he was one of the greatest executives and negotiators basketball would ever produce, not because fate had ordained it, but because Kobe had watched, firsthand, the habits that made it inevitable.
Long before championships, before boardrooms, before front-office titles, Rob had already possessed the qualities that separated extraordinary people from merely successful ones.
Kobe wasn’t betting on the future.
He was betting on the man.
He smiled.
He wasn’t looking for the best agent in basketball.
He was looking for the man who would become one.
The room settled into silence.
Outside, the summer wind stirred the trees as dark clouds rolled across the Philadelphia sky.
Kobe swung his legs over the side of the bed and crossed to the small desk beneath the window.
He pulled open the bottom drawer, found the 1996 notebook, and uncapped a blue ballpoint pen.
He wrote one name.
Rob Pelinka.
The letters looked ordinary.
Almost insignificant.
Yet they marked the first business decision of his second life.
A single name.
A single choice.
He rested the pen beside the notebook and studied the name for one last moment.
“Kobe!” His mother’s voice floated up the staircase.
“Dinner’s ready!” He closed the notebook, slid it back into the drawer, and pushed it shut.
“Coming.” The decision was made.
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Dinner at the Bryant house moved the way a good offense moved; everyone was reading the room, adjusting without being told.
Joe waited for the rhythm of the meal to settle: Sharia’s fork scraping against her plate, Shaya humming a faint, wandering tune, and the soft thud as the mashed potato bowl was set back on the table.
He reached for the salt, shook it twice over his chicken, and returned it to its place.
Still not looking up, he cut into a piece of chicken and said, “So.
Anything new on the agent situation?” Only then did he lift his eyes to Kobe’s, a dry half-smile forming.
“Or is that still top secret?” The question landed, gentle but loaded.
The draft was still months away, but the selection of an agent was the first adult act in this whole parade, the moment that separated the boys from the men who made a living from the game.
Kobe set his fork down, the soft clink of metal against porcelain cutting through the conversation.
“I already decided.” Shaya’s fork hovered above the mashed potato volcano she’d been building, forgotten in midair.
Across the table, Joe lowered his glass and fixed his son with a steady look.
No one spoke for a moment.
“Falk?” Joe asked.
“Or the Tellem guy?” He looked at Kobe the way he used to look at opposing coaches, not with hostility but absolutely still, the way a man gets when he has decided that the next thirty seconds matter.
Kobe shook his head no.
“Rob Pelinka.” Joe didn’t answer immediately.
The name seemed to hang over the table.
Slowly, he set his fork back onto his plate.
“Pelinka,” he repeated, testing the unfamiliar name.
“That’s not…
is he even an agent?
Who does he represent?” “He just graduated from Michigan Law,” Kobe said.
“He played basketball at Michigan.
He’s the one I want representing me.” Sharia let out a short laugh.
“So you picked a guy who’s never actually been an agent before?” Joe barely acknowledged her.
He leaned forward, forearms resting on the table, his attention fixed entirely on Kobe.
“Son,” he said, “that’s a hell of a risk.” He gestured lightly with his fork.
“Falk represents Jordan.
Tellem’s got relationships with every front office in the league.
Those guys have spent years earning trust.
This Pelinka kid…
he’s never negotiated a deal.
He’s never sat across from an owner.
If he makes a mistake, you don’t get that first impression back.” His eyes searched Kobe’s face.
“So tell me why.” Kobe had already answered the question in his own mind upstairs.
Now he simply had to put it into words.
“Because I don’t want to be another name on someone’s client list,” he said.
“I want someone who’s building something with me, not someone fitting me into something they’ve already built.” Joe said nothing.
Kobe held his father’s gaze.
“The big agents already have stars.
Their attention is divided.
Rob doesn’t have that.
He’ll have one client to prove himself with.” A faint smile crossed Kobe’s face.
Shaya frowned thoughtfully.
“So…
you just want someone who’s starting out, too?” Kobe smiled.
“Something like that.” Joe’s fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the edge of his plate, a habit that surfaced whenever he was weighing something important.
His eyes never left Kobe.
“You know what this means, right?” Kobe nodded.
“If this goes sideways…” Joe said quietly, “…there’s nobody else to blame.” “I know.” Joe’s eyes didn’t leave his son’s face.
“Not your coach.” “I know.” “Not me.” Joe’s words hung between them.
Kobe held his father’s gaze and answered one last time.
“I know.” Joe held his gaze another moment before slowly leaning back in his chair.
Pamela reached over and rested a hand lightly on Joe’s forearm.
“He has to make his own decisions,” she said softly.
Joe looked at her, then back at Kobe.
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the clink of silverware against porcelain.
Finally, Joe nodded.
“All right.” “If that’s who you believe in…” He pointed his fork toward Kobe.
“…then we believe in you.” The tension around the table eased almost instantly.
Kobe allowed himself a small smile.
“I’ll call him tomorrow.” Joe picked up his fork again.
Kobe looked around the table.
His mother.
His father.
His sisters.
None of them realized it.
To them, it had been an intense conversation over dinner.
To Kobe…
…it had been the first move in changing history.
Outside, the last light of evening disappeared beyond the Bryant home.
Tomorrow, history would begin to drift from the path he remembered.
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What a week!
Thanks to all of your support, MAMBA has officially broken into the Top 100 and is currently sitting at #85!
We also passed 41K views, 200+ collections, and 50k+ words in just 15 chapters.
Let’s keep the momentum going and see how high we can climb next week!
Thank you all, and I’ll see you in the next chapter!