A standing ovation for Kobe Bryant

Yes, he was blessed with blue-ribbon bloodlines.

And yes, he was born a child of privilege, wanting for nothing.

And yes, his DNA flows hot and heavy.

But this is the difference, this is what set him apart: He hasn't squandered his gifts, he hasn't been content to skate his way through life, not content to being pretty good, and not just the star.

Kobe Bryant leaves the stage now and he leaves, it says here, as one of the four best basketball players ever.

Ever.

Take a bow, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James. Heady company, indeed.

After 20 star-spangled NBA seasons, Kobe Bryant, at 37 and feeling every ache of it, has completed the transition from High School Hotshot to The Golden One, and in so doing managed to overcome the most daunting task that confronts an athlete - everyone else's expectations.

They thought he was being thrown to the wolves, a 16-year-old playing against grown men. What was the point?

Well, his father, Joe "Jelly Bean" Bryant, once a 76er, lined up professional players and instructed them to go all-out in the scrimmages. No holding back. "We won't hurt him, Joe."

"It's you I'm worried about getting hurt," Joe replied.

The teenager turned out to be a killer. Nor was he the least bit shy.

It's been 20 years, and I can still see this so-sure-of-himself kid calling a news conference at Lower Merion High School to announce: "I have decided to skip college and take my talents to the NBA."

Every scout and GM and coach said basically the same thing: The kid can play. He can dominate. The others already have anointed him "The Truth."

I remained a skeptic. Check back in 20 years, they said.

So we did.

Question: What's better than taking 1,000 jump shots a day?

Answer: Taking 2,000 jump shots a day.

So he put in the time. If you don't, you'll be exposed soon enough. So you live in the weight room pumping iron, armor-plating yourself until you're so hard they could strike a match on you, the sweat running off you in little rivers.

The NBA is not for the timid. The players make the rims vibrate like tuning forks when they rise up to throw down one of those apocalyptic dunks. Rookies get welcomed - and tested - early.

The NBA body is a marvelous machine, sculpted and built to run 7 miles a night.

The season lasts forever and injury is inevitable. Kobe Bryant was an attentive caretaker of the body that was dealt him, and because of his care he kept injury at bay.

Until now.

Now what doesn't hurt doesn't work. He has played through concussions and broken noses, through knee sprains and back miseries and a shoulder coming apart and a torn Achilles and nine months of rehab and always, always he has been able to will himself back.

Until now.

He looked up, and this time the light was red. So he announced this would be his final season.

He could drive, when he needed to. He was fearless when he had to be. He could coil and slither down the lane, his body control sure as a page from the ballet.

But the jumper . . . ah, the jump shot, that was his meat.

Like all the good shooters, he was without conscience. If the ball is in his hands, it's going up, especially if the game is late and the score tight.

That's when you find out who wants the ball and who wants no part of it. Kobe Bryant wanted it, demanded it, every time.

Shooters, see, aren't dissuaded by a miss, because they are positively, absolutely, bet-the-house certain that the next one's going in.

And if it doesn't, then the one after that.

So for the last couple of decades, give or take, and for 32,000 points, give or take, one of the most familiar sights in the NBA has been that cheetah-sleek, shaved-head, sky-walker making the nets sing.

What was there about him that looked so familiar? Of course . . . MJ.

The NBA had been waiting for the second coming of Michael Jordan and here seemed to be a reasonable facsimile. The Archangel of Hoops Heaven.

Quite a load to strap on. He relished it.

The scouting report lists Kobe Bean Bryant (the Bean from his father's nickname) as a 6-6 combination shooting guard and small forward.

He retires wearing the colors of the Los Angeles Lakers, the colors that he wore his very first game, and, yes, that is a rarity, to play for the same team your whole career.

There are people out there who have wondered what he would have looked like in 76ers colors, the colors of his father.

That was never going to happen. Before the Sixers and Lakers played in the finals, Kobe Bryant told a persistent heckler that LA was "going to cut your hearts out." It earned him a relentless serenade of boooos, of course. He was well-acquainted, after all, with the Sound of Philadelphia. It didn't help that LA won in five.

The portfolio is a fat one:

18 times an All-Star.

5 NBA championships.

7 Finals.

2 Olympic gold medals.

12 All-Defense citations.

At every NBA stop this season they pay him homage. This year has been the Kobe Bryant Across America Tour.

Quite a journey, from Lower Merion High to an inevitable spot in the Hall of Fame.

Bill Lyon is a retired Inquirer sports columnist. lyon1964@comcast.net