At 685 miles from Los Angeles, and 2,184 miles from Philadelphia's Lower Merion High School, there is not much overlap between Kobe Bryant and the snow-capped mountains in Provo, Utah.
But John Linehan, who is an assistant basketball coach for BYU, has a deep history with the Black Mamba, going back nearly 30 years.
Linehan has held many titles over the years. Coach, MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, but there is one title that the BYU assistant coach holds that no one else has ever held: The only person in the world to "shut down Kobe Bryant."
Philadelphia's 'golden' basketball age
“I oftentimes call it the golden era of basketball. Philadelphia at the time was loaded with players,” said Linehan, who grew up in Chester, PA, a suburb located 15 miles outside of downtown Philly.
In the mid to late 90s, Philadelphia was a hotbed for high school basketball, with future stars popping up all over vying for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association district championship. You had Kobe Bryant at Lower Merion, Rip Hamilton at Coatesville Area and the defensive monster, John Linehan, at Chester.
“It was just a time where basketball meant everything,” Linehan said. “Back in the day, basketball was life.”
Philly's premiere high school basketball rivalry at the time was between Chester and Lower Marion. In 1995 and 1996, Chester and Lower Merion played three times, all in district and state tournaments. In 1995, the year before Kobe became the No. 1 high school recruit in the country, Chester routed Lower Merion 77-50 to win the district championship, but it was in 1996 where things really took off between the Clippers and the Aces.
That season, still upset about the loss to Chester in 1995, Kobe and Lower Merion wore warm up shirts with the number “27” on them. Why? Because 27 was the amount of points that Chester had beaten Lower Merion by in that district championship.
“That was their whole motivation the next year … to beat Chester,” Linehan said. “If you ask any historian in the Philadelphia area about those two games, it was like the biggest games ever … standing room only.”
In the two schools’ rematch in the district finals, Bryant dropped 34 points in a close, seven-point victory over Chester. Bryant's team then beat Chester for a second time in the state semifinals. Lower Merion won the state championship for the first time in 40 years and Bryant was drafted that summer. The Aces got their revenge.
The Sam Rines AAU Team
The iconic battles between Chester and Lower Merion weren’t the only times that Linehan went up against the great Kobe Bryant. He got the chance to play against (and alongside) Bryant everyday at practice, as the two were both on the Sam Rines AAU team.
Sam Rines, who now serves as the founder, athletic director, and coach at Rocktop Academy, was the head coach of what he believes to be “the greatest AAU team of all time,” which featured Kobe Bryant, Rip Hamilton and John Linehan.
Rines had known Kobe since he was 13 years old and had coached him prior to the 1995 AAU cycle. Over those years, they played against a 5-foot-9 kid from Chester named John Linehan. According to Rines, Linehan was “one of the best defensive players [he’s] ever seen,” and he knew that he had to get him to play on his team.
Once Linehan joined Rines’ squad, he began giving Kobe fits in practice.
“John was the only player in the state of Pennsylvania that could control Kobe at the time,” Rines said. “John was Kobe’s biggest enemy. He wouldn’t allow him to even bring the ball up the court. Kobe would try to spin or get away from John, but he was so strong and had such long arms that he was able to steal the ball with ease.”
Linehan always brought that intensity to practice. His former college teammate, Abdul Mills, said that “every day John was up in you. If you didn’t play hard against him, then you were not gonna play. Every day I had to go out and try to kill him.”
But just as much as Linehan helped Kobe in practice, Linehan learned that same intensity from a young Mamba.
At a particular tournament in 1995, the Charlie Webber AAU tournament held at the University of Maryland, Linehan and Bryant were assigned as roommates.
“We’re kids right? We want to go out to the mall, you know? We want to hang out and have fun,” Linehan remembers, “but Kobe was locked in to the head to head matchup between him and Tim Thomas.”
Lights out at 9 p.m.
Thomas was the No. 2 ranked high school player in the class of 1996 (Bryant was No. 1) and was also Kobe's former AAU teammate. In 1994, their AAU team included Hamilton and Vince Carter, for a total of four future NBA lottery picks on one team. The team was so dominate that Thomas decided he needed a bigger challenge and joined a different team the following summer.
This game was the most anticipated matchup in the tournament, but for whatever reason, Thomas showed up late.
“It was the end of the first quarter going into the second and we were in a huddle. All of the sudden you just hear this roar. Kobe peeked through the huddle and we see Tim Thomas cut through the court," Lineman said. "Man, when I say Kobe Bryant was just rubbing his hands together, it was like he couldn't sit still. Like he was just swaying back and forth in his seat. He couldn't wait to get his hands on Tim Thomas.
“That was when I said Kobe Bryant is the best high school player I’ve ever seen. I knew he was going to be special at that point, because he just approached the game differently. He wanted to be the best ever and he later became that.”
“A lot of people don't understand what I'm saying. People would say ‘Oh, he's just trying to be like Mike,’ no, he really thought he was Mike,” Rines said. “You couldn't tell him that he wasn't Michael Jordan.”
Fast-forward to 2001. Linehan was the best defensive player in college basketball for the Providence Friars, and Kobe was competing for his second of three straight NBA championships with the Lakers. When asked who was the best defensive player he ever played against, many assumed it would be the likes of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, or Gary Payton, but Kobe pulled a name almost nobody suspected.
“You may laugh, but it’s a guy named John Linehan,” Kobe responded.
While Linehan never put on an NBA uniform, should we really be shocked by Kobe’s answer? At Providence, he was twice named the Big East Defensive Player of the Year and was awarded the National Defensive Player of the Year in 2002. He finished his time with the Friars holding the record for most steals ever in NCAA men's basketball, a record that was held until 2021.
(It’s worth noting that the record was broken by Jacob Gilyard, who played 32 more games than Linehan. Linehan averaged more steals per game.)
In Linehan’s final season at Providence, he averaged a mind-boggling 4.5 steals per game. No player has averaged more than four since then.
The accident that shocked the world
On January 26, 2020, Linehan’s former roommate, teammate, and high school rival, Kobe Bryant, was killed in a helicopter crash. Linehan was in the middle of a practice at the University of Georgia, where he was an assistant coach at the time.
“I heard one of the managers say, ‘Can you believe that about Kobe?' What are you talking about?” Linehan asked before rushing off the court and into his office to see for himself. “All over my screen was Kobe Bryant and the accident. … I was distraught, man.
“I left practice, I sat in my office for a long time, I cried a little bit. I actually walked to a local church that was just around the corner from campus. I just had to get away from things. ... That was my friend.”
Rines was flooded with the memories of playing one-on-one with a young, teenage Bryant. When the Bryant family moved back to Philly from Italy, Kobe was talented, but also raw, and was not the greatest ball handler. After a few years in the states, Rines couldn't keep up in their post-practice battles.
"I realized I can't play him one-on-one anymore because he's too much of a competitor," Rines said. Bryant was blossoming into a future MVP and Rines was doing what most people who are not superstar athletes do: Age.
Bryant's relentless competitive nature and dedication to the game was contagious and made Rines realize that he wanted to coach basketball full time. He still coaches to this day.
Linehan's continued career
After his historic senior season at Providence, Linehan went undrafted in the 2002 NBA draft. He spent two seasons in the NBA’s Development League then went off to play professionally overseas, racking up four more Defensive Player of the Year awards and winning the French League Finals MVP in 2011 with SLUC Nancy.
In April, BYU shocked the college basketball world by hiring the highest paid assistant coach in the NBA, Kevin Young, from the Phoenix Suns. Young immediately signed the two highest prospects in program history with Egor Demin and Kanon Catchings (both are projected first round draft picks in the 2025 NBA Draft).
But almost just as important as getting the right players on the court is getting the right coaches on the bench. After coaching on the St. Joseph's staff in his hometown for the last two seasons, Linehan came out west to join college basketball’s most intriguing new team. He teaches the Cougars the same lessons that he learned from his upbringing in Philly.
“If you want to be great, you got to work at it. You got to almost be insane about it. That’s what made Kobe so good,” Linehan said. “He was laser focused on what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go in the game of basketball.
“You can’t just say you’re gonna be good, or you want to be great, or you want to be a pro. No. You got to work at it every single day. That’s something that Kobe lived by. Rip did too. That's something that Sam Rines installed in all of us. … I’m forever indebted to all of those guys.”