Over two legendary decades in professional basketball, countless stories have recounted Kobe Bryant's unparalleled dedication to - and obsession with - perfection.
Gerald Henderson added another one to the fabled list Thursday when the Portland Trail Blazers swingman wrote about his first professional encounter with Bryant in 2009 as a rookie with the Charlotte Bobcats.
As Henderson tells it, he observed Bryant getting some pregame shots up, but the Black Mamba was uncharacteristically bricking more of them than he was making.
"All of a sudden, I looked up and Kobe had stopped shooting," Henderson wrote in The Players' Tribune. "He was holding the ball on his hip with one hand - and motioning to the sideline with the other."
According to Henderson, a maintenance crew with a ladder and measuring tape then stormed the court and began to work on the net Bryant had been shooting on, with Kobe gesturing to them.
"It's too low," Bryant later said to Henderson. "The rim's a quarter of an inch too low."
After the game, the Bobcats rookie asked one of the maintenance workers about the pregame commotion, and was subsequently told the net had to be adjusted to the standard 10-foot height.
"Then he told me how much it was off by," Henderson wrote. "I could tell you his answer, but I think you already know what he said."
