Mamba Day a big one at Tustin Playground

Passing shower, the forecast said. “Supposed to go by quickly,” someone said. Nope, this rain lingered and soon picked up intensity, coming hard. A tent was hastily put up over honored guests.

If you think about it, Mamba did not do soft – that was not Kobe Bryant’s thing – and Thursday was Mamba Day at Tustin Playground, venerable grounds that are almost sacred in Philly hoops, right across the street from Overbrook High.

The basketball courts at Tustin got a spectacular reboot last year. It’s now the Kobe and Gianna Bryant Dream Court, their eyes on the hoopers at all times from all sorts of angles, with Lakers colors taking over the courts.

The idea began as a project by Nancy Lieberman’s charitable foundation, bringing urban courts back to life around the country. That was good for one court. But there are two full courts at Tustin, so Kobe’s widow, Vanessa, stepped up too. The Mamba and Mambacita Foundation partnered in the project.

Why Tustin? Isn’t the tag on Kobe that he’s a suburban guy? Lower Merion is on the other side of City Avenue, as is Lankenau Hospital, where Kobe was born. Tustin is a little less than a mile down Lancaster Avenue from the border on the city side.

“He grew up here playing,” said Sheldon Robinson, founder of Hilltop Hope, one of the event organizers. “His uncle lived over there across the street. Chubby will be here. This is where Kobe would come for the summertime. Kobe would tell everyone, ‘This is where I got my basketball game, from Tustin.’”

Richardson and Greg Allen, another event organizer, described people lining up along the fence as Bryant grew older – “They knew there was something magic going on.”

“Word got back to Vanessa Bryant,” Robinson said about the refurbishing. “She was like, ‘Listen, I don’t know a lot about Philly, but I know about that court. My husband talked about it all the time. Whenever we came to Philly, we drove by it.’”

The stories were family tales.

“His older cousin Sharif was a really, really good basketball player, so Kobe was always underneath him,” Robinson said. “His toughness and grit come from that.”

This day, Kobe’s uncle Chubby showed up soon after, helped out of a car by his son, Sharif Butler. Chubby Cox, brother of Kobe’s mother, a Roxborough High grad, is famous for being Rollie Massimino’s big Philadelphia recruit at Villanova, a unique distinction of its own. Chubby’s son John is now an assistant coach at La Salle, keeping the family business going. Sharif was a little older.

“I’m three years older than Kobe and I developed a little quicker than Kobe,” said Sharif Butler. “And Kobe was a little slow to develop.”

Butler meant physically. So for a time, a short time, maybe the three-year difference was more like five years.

“So it was a lot of dunks, a lot of talking trash to him,” Butler said. “He had the skills, of course, coming from over in Europe.”

This was when Kobe and his family were coming back for summers from Italy, where Kobe’s father, Joe, was playing professionally.

“The difficulty, I think, was the toughness that this would instill,” Butler said. “So we were going back and forth between Ardmore and here. A couple of times, just taking it to him. It got to the point where he just acted like he didn’t want to play anymore, kind of hid. He came back, starting practicing on his own.”

This was like eighth grade?

“No, no, no, no, no,” Butler said. “This was younger than that. This was probably, I was in eighth, he was like in fifth.”

Butler can skip years ahead, to playing with Kobe at St. Joseph’s, just before the NBA draft.

“It was unbelievable,” Butler said. “He just demolished me. I didn’t even score on him. And I could still play at that time. It was just a whole ‘nother level. A lot of anger, aggression, embarrassment, you know what I mean?”

Kobe’s cousin had to forget the past. He could see the future.

“I had played against some really good players – that domination had never happened like that,” Butler said. “I was telling people he was the best player in the world at that point. ‘Mike wouldn’t beat me like this, I’m telling you.’

He meant Jordan. Maybe Jordan at his height would, but not 17-year-old Jordan.

“The way he was doing it, J’s, dunking, he had everything at that point,” Butler said of Kobe. “Still raw at 17.”

Not to be a cliche, but how important was Philly to all that?

“It had to be,” Butler said. “You had to have Philly. That’s what made him tough. He had the skills, but you need that edge.”

A story went around the playground this past week, how little Kobe would get taken out by Sharif and would go put his head on Uncle Chubby’s knee and cry. Then one day he didn’t.

“You beat him, didn’t you?” Chubby said to him.

Ancient history now. Since Kobe and his daughter died in a helicopter crash in 2020, it’s all part of the mythology. Memorials pile up. The Lakers just announced they will put up a statue outside their arena on 2-8-24, even the date incorporating Gigi’s and Kobe’s jersey numbers.

“The butterflies you see around the court, that signifies Gigi – it’s not just Kobe’s court,” Robinson said of Tustin.

“This became a tourist attraction – it’s like the Rocky steps and the Rocky statue itself,” said Curtis Johnson, the rec center leader, who has an office inside. “I see people coming from all over. Anyone visiting Philadelphia, they come up here – we’ve been taking tabs on how far they have come. Italy, Mexico. Taking their pictures.”

Across from Overbrook High, where Wilt Chamberlain and other greats learned their craft and dazzled the city. The games filtered outside, for generations. If those courts at Tustin could talk.

“That’s why it’s #wherethegreatsplay,” Johnson said.

Before the rain, someone playing pickup fell on the purple and gold court.

“Get up, shake it off, you’re good,” Johnson yelled over.