Kobe Bryant’s death was, most immediately, a family tragedy. Popularly, it was disorienting. For more than two decades, this large and potent man impressed his will on more than the basketball court. We know that death is constant, recurring—but somehow his seemed unnatural.

It’s not surprising. For decades, Bryant and advertising executives had spun his gifts into fables. Fables that celebrated his talent, but stressed the importance of honest virtue in realising it. Which made commercial sense. The public can’t emulate prodigious athleticism, but it can believe in better applying discipline and self-belief to their own quiet, uncelebrated lives. ‘The minute you get away from fundamentals—whether it’s proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation—the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing,’ Michael Jordan’s ghostwriter declared in the 1994 bestseller, I Can’t Accept Not Trying.