For little Kobe Bryant growing up in …

For little Kobe Bryant growing up in Italy, the player that amazed him as a child was a skinny and half bald Brazilian guard who often beat his father’s teams with long distance shots. Oscar Schmidt, one of basketball’s all-time leading scorers with almost 50,000 points, played with Italian teams between 1982 and 1993. It was there that the son of Joe Bryant started going to courts to watch his father in action and, when possible, take a few shots himself.