The message could come at any time.
For a heartbroken Isaiah Thomas, it came following a second straight loss to open a first-round series against the Chicago Bulls in 2017, when the former Boston Celtics point guard was still reeling from the death of his sister three days earlier. Kobe Bryant was on the line, and he wanted to help the best way he knew how. He asked for film, Thomas emailed it, and they broke it down over the phone for half an hour.
They had stayed in regular contact ever since. It was a rite of passage for a generation of NBA players who grew up idolizing Bryant — the phone call, the text message, the Twitter challenge that meant everything.