Kobe Bryant's INSANE Sacrifice for Team USA Basketball

coach do you have any favorite uh Kobe stories yeah you know uh a number of them the best one or one of the best ones was you know when we uh we're starting to build a culture uh at uh USA Basketball he Chauncey Phillips and Jason Kidd were added to add uh veteran leadership to LeBron and Carmelo and you know those those guys who are great guys and so we're getting ready to uh uh to get ready for a Beijing and uh so I'm with my staff in Vegas a couple days before the team comes in and uh all of a sudden there's a knock on the door just two days early and it's Kobe he said coach can can I talk to you for a minute and I said certainly so we went to a private room and uh I said what do you need he said I I need to ask you a favor and I yeah I said yeah what is it he said I want to guard the best perimeter player on every team that we play now he's the NBA scoring champ he's the best player in the league at that time he had 750 point games that year and he he knew that he would have to change a little bit and be a leader and and but he says I you know I want to guard the best perimeter player and then he pauses in you know his eyes he and Jordan have the same had the same eyes they killed you with their arms and and he leans forward and he said because I promise you I'll destroy him but I got I wish that I said this is good so uh we go we have a team meeting in the first practice he doesn't take a shot he does not take one shot and he's playing defenses I call him over afterwards I said you know yo this destroy thing he says coach I I promised you I'll destroy him I said look I've seen you destroy teams offensively will you shoot the freaking ball and he smile you know he had that smile and he said from then on I was the only coach ever to ask him to shoot and you know what he was doing JJ he he had this vision of moments he knew that for us to win the gold medal we would have to beat Argentina whether it be in a semis or the gold medal game

Channel: PodcastPossum

Views: 130,109

Keywords: #Kobe, #NBA, #USA, #Winning, #Mamba Mentality

Id: 3D-L7BdnR1w

Length: 2min 45sec (165 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023