The first thing you noticed about Kobe Bryant were the shoes.
He showed up at perhaps his final Lakers media day Monday wearing odd-looking basketball sneakers that crept up his ankles like the footwear of a heavyweight.
"I want to feel like a boxer," he said.
The next thing you noticed about Kobe Bryant were the shrugs.
This is a man who has made a career out of never being uncertain about anything. Yet, as he begins his 20th Lakers season in the stance of a fighter, he admitted he will be throwing punches into darkness, this last battle against mortality conducted with a blind fury toward an unseen opponent.