Getting into the inner circle of an individual like Kobe Bryant isn’t an easy task, especially back in the early 2000s. While Kobe mellowed down a lot post-retirement, he was a very different individual in his early years in the league, but Nico Harrison still managed to become one of his closest confidantes.
Harrison was assigned by Nike as Bryant’s marketing liaison, and he helped rebuild Kobe’s image in the eyes of the public. The two grew to become incredibly close over time, but Harrison revealed during an appearance on the Point Forward podcast that Bryant didn’t trust him at the start, as he wasn’t the type to trust anyone back in those days.
(starts at 7:20 mark):
“He actually didn’t trust me at first, he didn’t trust anybody. But at the time he was going through a lot off the court. But the way he started trusting me was really my approach to everything I did. It was the same approach he had to basketball. If I said I was going to do something, I did it. Cross the T’s dot the I’s I was maniacal about my part in his business. And so when he saw that, then he was like ‘alright I can rock with this guy.'”
That is the best way to gain anybody’s trust, and Harrison, over time, became known for being trustworthy and for developing personal connections, which made him incredibly successful during his time with Nike.
His ability to relate with people, combined with his business mind and his basketball background (having played overseas), is perhaps why the Mavericks hired him to be their General Manager last year after he left Nike. While Harrison left Nike with many happy memories, he also, unfortunately, had some role to play in Stephen Curry leaving Nike for Under Armour. However, he did make it clear he wasn’t the one who Dell Curry had claimed mispronounced his son’s name during that infamous meeting.
