Kobe Bryant pens a letter to his 17-year-old self

Back in November, while his final NBA season was just beginning, we told you the story of 17-year-old Kobe Bryant as recalled by his high school teammates.

Now 37 years old and retired from pro basketball, Bryant just penned a letter to his teenage self, dispensing two decades worth of wisdom upon a young phenom who would go on to become an NBA icon.

Bryant delivered one simple message to -- um -- Bryant in a letter published Wednesday on The Players' Tribune. That message:

Taking care of those around you can have unintended consequences.

"You will come to understand that you were taking care of them because it made YOU feel good, it made YOU happy to see them smiling and without a care in the world — and that was extremely selfish of you," Bryant writes. "While you were feeling satisfied with yourself, you were slowly eating away at their own dreams and ambitions. You were adding material things to their lives, but subtracting the most precious gifts of all: independence and growth."

It's basically a spin on the told teach-a-man-to-fish adage.

"Use your success, wealth and influence to put them in the best position to realize their own dreams and find their true purpose," Bryant writes. "Put them through school, set them up with job interviews and help them become leaders in their own right. Hold them to the same level of hard work and dedication that it took for you to get to where you are now, and where you will eventually go."

But Bryant is a practical man -- even when penning an imaginary letter to his teenage self.

"There’s plenty more I could write to you, but at 17, I know you don’t have the attention span to sit through 2,000 words," he writes before signing off.

Perhaps for his next letter, Bryant can explain to his younger self why it's important to take 50 field goal attempts in your final NBA game. That's the sort of power move you only learn with experience.

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