For over 40 years, Andrew D. Bernstein captured some of the most captivating photos in sports history as the go-to L.A. team photographer for the Lakers, Kings, Clippers and Dodgers.
Quickly gaining trust from high-status players including Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Kobe Bryant, Bernstein became, in his words, a welcomed “fly on the wall” at many of the biggest sports events in recent history, including the Dream Team’s 1992 Summer Olympic run, Michael Jordan’s first championship win with the Chicago Bulls, and Wayne Gretzky’s historic 802nd goal, when he surpassed Gordie Howe’s record.
Now, Bernstein hosts the Legend of Sport podcast, mentors the next generation of sport photographers, and runs NBA Photos â the worldwide leader in licensing of NBA photography, which he co-launched four decades ago.
Here, he takes us behind-the-scenes of some of the greatest moments in sport.
“When a team wins a championship, we all rush on the court ⦠absolute chaos and pandemonium going on. Once things sort of settle down, they do the trophy presentation on the court and start doing interviews. That was my cue to go into the locker room.
“Then the champagne bath starts and all hell breaks loose in the locker room ⦠we’re all looking at each other like, ‘Where’s Kobe? Where’s the trophy?’ And we kind of panicked, because that’s our job, is to find the star player, and obviously the trophy has to be somewhere.
“So went on a seek and destroy mission ⦠and ended up literally in the back of the locker room, in the shower. And there he [Kobe] is by himself with the trophy, having his moment ⦠he is so deep into whatever he’s thinking about. I had asked him later on, were you distracted by this? He goes, absolutely not ⦠Didn’t even have any clue you guys were there.”
“This is what we call in LA the Grammy road trip because every year the Grammy’s come into Staples Center, which is now Crypto.com Arena, and they take over the building for three weeks ⦠They go on a very long road trip, basically 10 games in 13 days ⦠This is the middle of that crazy Grammys road trip they played the night before in Cleveland. Kobe was totally beat up. Both his ankles were swollen. He had broken his index finger on his shooting hand, as you can see this little coffee cup that he’s holding, he’s got ice in it.
“Then we got to the hotel at 5 a.m., nobody got any sleep. Turned around, these guys had shoot-around, then they had to be at the arena for the game and Madison Square Garden didn’t have a place where Kobe could go do his private meditation and his private workout with his trainer. He had to do all of that in the locker room with the guys around him. I was doing my pass through the locker room before I had to get out ⦠and just at the corner of my eye, I saw him, saw this moment in front of his locker, and just took two very quick frames, no flash, scared to death that I was going to distract distract him with the shutter clicking.
“He told me years later that he had no clue that I was even there, and just this moment captured is I would say probably my favourite NBA picture I ever took.”
“If I hadn’t taken this picture, all 20 years of photographing him would have had one gigantic piece of that puzzle missing, because this was the end of the story ⦠This is the last moment of him wearing a Laker uniform as he leaves the court. Two steps later from this photo, he’s off the court for good, took the uniform off, and that was the end ⦠I obsessed over this moment for weeks and weeks.
“I had four other photographers at that game. All of us were in strategic positions, but I personally had to get this moment. And what’s kind of funny is if you zoom out from this, because this is crop, you can see the outline of a guy in a black suit just to the very left ⦠he’s a pretty large security guy named Brian, who I knew for a long time. I was screaming literally at the top of my lungs because he was blocking Kobe ⦠I couldn’t get Kobe framed with the number 24.
“And I don’t know if it’s some divine intervention and Brian just took a big step forward, and I was able to bang this one shot. I made a nice big print for Brian that he’s in, and I said, ‘Thank you for not screwing up my shot.'”
“There was pandemonium on the court back in those days, the network ⦠decided to do the trophy presentation to the team in the locker room of the winning team or the visiting team ⦠everybody could come in, the families, all the media, everybody, and they do the trophy presentation to the Bulls.
“David Stern hands the trophy to Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner ⦠the network goes to commercial and their plan after commercial was to do a one-on-one with Michael. So lo-and-behold ⦠they’re starting to come out of commercial, and there’s no Michael. There’s no trophy, and people are losing their minds ⦠I couldn’t get a clean shot, so I decided I had to jump up on a bridge table in the middle of the room ⦠something in my head said look to your left ⦠there he was. He’s probably four feet away from me, to my left, in a locker hugging the trophy with his dad next to him, just emotions flowing out.
“No one knew that there’s going to be five more [championships] after that, but it was the beginning of this dynasty. After his dad was murdered, a few years later, I got a call from Michael’s office that Michael would like a signed print of that photo to hang in his house or his office ⦠which was really touching and wonderful.”
“Although I was in the city of Toronto, the entire country was reveling in this incredible moment ⦠It was great to be able to photograph that and document it ⦠I had to pinch myself. I was super happy for Marc Gasol, who I’d gotten to know through his brother [Pau] and the Tannenbaum family, I’ve gotten to know them over the years.
“I got to see Kawhi Leonard smile. That was kind of cool.
“I was instructed to follow Kawhi from the moment he left the court. And that was about two, almost three hours of behind the scenes coverage, all the interviews he did, his family, private moments, with his teammates, everything. He had let his guard down by that point.
“Mr. and Mrs. Tannenbaum [were] getting covered in champagne and loving it. You don’t really see the owners that often getting into the mix with the guys you know so that was kind of cool.”
“I can’t believe that was like 31 years ago. When Wayne came to the L.A. Kings ⦠he brought an infusion of greatness ⦠I covered Wayne when he was a rookie, at 19, for Edmonton. I was just always in awe of his talent. And here he is just like magic, just like Kobe in front of my lens. Like every home game is unbelievable.
“[The night of his 802nd goal] … going into the locker room afterwards and getting Wayne to hold up the puck, and he was so happy. And I think he was relieved as well. There was just so much pressure on him to break it ⦠He spent a lot of time with the media after the game. I remember, he was happy.
“Wayne was a super down to earth, approachable guy. I was always in awe of his talent ⦠very thankful he came to my city, that’s for sure.”
