Rob Pelinka once received an extraordinary request from a client who wanted to cage dive with great white sharks off the coast of Guadalupe Island. Pelinka not only arranged it, but he also got into the cage with that client, the late Kobe Bryant, who later used the lessons he learned from the experience while studying how to defend Allen Iverson.

While he thought that would be the end of such lessons, he got another call from a different agent last April. This time around, it was for a Western Conference rival, with a different kind of problem. According to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Victor Wembanyama’s agent, Bouna Ndiaye, reached out to the Lakers’ GM and arranged a lunch to help him address Wembanyama’s physical challenges in the league.

“Basically, he wanted to have a physical transformation so he can run forever and use his physical tools to get closer to the basket,” Ndiaye said. “And then he wanted to be challenged.”

Ndiaye saw a blueprint in the Bryant-Pelinka relationship. “The way they think is different,” he said. “The way they play, the way they stretch themselves, their curiosity, how they study and watch things. They’re both very creative when it comes to solving problems.”

Pelinka listened and then started talking. He told Ndiaye about the great white sharks. Bryant had written about it himself in The Players’ Tribune in 2017, how studying the patience, timing, and angles of a great white hunting seals off the South African coast informed how he prepared to guard Allen Iverson. The Sistine Chapel came next. Pelinka had arranged for Bryant to travel to Rome for a private tour, guided by an art historian, to stand beneath Michelangelo’s ceiling and absorb something that had nothing to do with basketball.

Bryant’s fascination was never really about technique. As Pelinka explained to Ndiaye, it was about the vision and perseverance required to create something extraordinary under impossible conditions: lying on scaffolding for years, working in limited natural light, and still producing a masterpiece.

The lesson centered on how far the mind can push the body beyond its limits. As Shelburne noted, that mirrors what Victor Wembanyama does nightly against players physically built to make his job harder.

“Victor is not like anybody else,” Ndiaye told ESPN. “We have to be creative to build programs that are unique to him.”

That philosophy showed up Monday night in Oklahoma City, where Wembanyama played a career-high 49 minutes and finished with 41 points, 24 rebounds, three assists, and three blocks in a double-overtime win over the defending champions.

“I Wanted to Understand How Kobe Did Things”: The Philosophy Powering Wembanyama’s Game

Ndiaye’s interest in meeting Pelinka was never purely about basketball training. It was philosophical.

“I wanted to understand how Kobe did things,” he told ESPN. “So that we could learn from him.”

Comparisons between Bryant and Wembanyama have followed the Spurs superstar since before he entered the NBA, not because they play alike, but because of the obsessive detail and curiosity both bring to preparation and competition.

Even San Antonio Spurs coach Mitch Johnson addressed it after Game 1: “He has a rare desire to step into every moment that’s in front of him. I think he’s showed in his three years in a lot of different situations and a lot of different circumstances that he is going to attack those moments.” 

Pelinka, who represented Bryant for most of his career, immediately understood what Ndiaye was searching for because he had spent years helping Kobe build that same obsessive approach to improvement.

The great white sharks were never a stunt. The Sistine Chapel was never tourism. They were tools Bryant used to think about basketball from angles the game itself could not provide.

Wembanyama, after his 41-point, 24-rebound masterpiece on Monday, offered his own version of that humility: “I feel like I still have a lot to learn. And I want to get that trophy many times in my career.” He referred to the MVP award he watched Shai Gilgeous-Alexander receive before tip-off.