The BEST Kobe Bryant stories that prove his OBSESSION

[Music] playing against kobe is like playing against a grizzly bear if anything any fear any fear in you that shows he's going to expose it i've actually uh enjoyed the encounters and the competition again cove man code's gonna bring the best out of you and when you play the best you know you better be on your best and uh anytime i'm pushed like that i have nothing but great respect for that story that i heard that you've landed in l.a and kobe picked you up he black range rules yeah he picked you up because he wanted he just wanted to chop it up with you and after y'all go out to eat or whatever you decide to go out he tell your ass i'm dropping you off to the hotel this is my stop i'm going to work out i'm going to the gym is that true story he took me out to eat and i said what you getting ready to do i'm going to the club and he said i'm going to the gym and that was him that was it that was that that's that's that's what made i mean that greatness that's that's where that greatness came from because his work ethic second to none was just but i guarantee you it's probably a handful of people on the other team that he was playing that he did that that he can't because you know kobe he ain't talking to nobody through the game damn sure nothing about another team so i'm just saying that show the respect you have you caught they're gonna pick up nobody no that's how he was he was a he was a sicko when it came to that kind of like trying to find any kind of advantage or angle he could possibly get like i got stories when i got a chance to play with him and just to see what he would do to study people study film it's my we were flying to spain one time to uh in the preseason i've told the story before but he had i thought he was over there rapping everyone was asleep i went over to talk to him i was about to talk to him about rapping but he was over there with a piece of paper with like 30 different basketball courts on and he's just like i know that i might draw at least three people so i got the guy guarding me the guy that's coming the double and then the help side so i'm over here looking to see where you lo ron steve fish are all going to be open at when i'm guarded by three people and he had like 30 different courts that this is where you're going to be this is where elo's gonna i'm just like what the like why are we flying like everyone else knocked out i couldn't sleep but it was just like little things like that and then i would go to orange county and work out with him and we on the track before the sun comes up and then we left weight so hard that all right let's go shoot down like i can't lift my arms you want me to go shoot a basketball right now like his grind was sick sickening that was his thing man if anybody know coal cove respects you if you're a dog and you're gonna go at him you go back at him and that's when cole started to respect me when he realized like i'm not backing down and it's not that attention it's just who i am i mean me and cole we got into a little tussle in the all-star game a little bit and i ended up hitting him in the wrong way and broke his nose that was the first time i've ever seen that but but someone say the thing so at the all-star break we got the lakers about like three games after the break yes he got the mask but you know what i call him you know not maliciously didn't maliciously do it i called him and i said yo cole he was like bro i love it i'm like you what he's like i love it i've seen a couple days on the phone oh snap he gave it to me too boy well that that game was exciting because you knew michael in the garden was always going to do something special um the biggest thing that stood out was kobe was going to go after michael and uh he wasn't scared and uh one of the plays that that i will never forget i mean we can ask carl malone about it someday is that he asked for a pick and roll and colby waved them off and uh i think we were all in awe or a shock that uh that's you know carl malone pick and roll john stockton they've done it a million times so colby and carl and and kobe was like no no no i got this all by myself and he waved carl out and he did his thing and i think carl was like okay i need to come out of the game because this is past me now yeah that's what exactly was going to ask you because cuomo was the people forget he was the mvp of the league at that time in 97 he won mvp what was it like after the game or even on the bench when carl when y'all were around car what was he talking like uh well one for you to just have the nerve to wave carl off even if he wasn't the mvp just because of his muscles you you had to be different and uh and so on the bench we were all in tears and laughing and giving carl a hard time about you must have didn't set a good screen and so uh but it just showed kobe's determination to be the best and he wanted to be the next michael jordan if not better and uh he wanted that one-on-one challenge and he didn't feel like he needed carl's help at the time i remember he had a coach coach wall down in orlando and i came out early to say hi to tyler i think it was and you know they were telling me oh max ready for you max max ready for the game and i remember reading about you having some tightness in your back yeah and i said yeah how's his back oh so he's ready for you i said he's gonna be fine when i hit him [Laughter] i'ma check yeah i'm gonna check that back i had like 21 in the first half i could have swore this dude i think i i came up uh got a rebound and i when i went down he jumped up behind me and i swear i got an airborne on my back i swear i got it i was like yo he did that because i was cooking in the first half right and i was like damn he is competitive drinking a cup of coffee you know that's gonna happen i just wanted to test the back out and see how let's see how healthy it is knowing that you know he's one of the greatest in my eye um probably my michael jordan um if i could say the words say the least but uh he's a he's a great competitor um for the most part every battle that i faced against him he probably the most he probably i watched the most film on him more than any other player really you know i mean it's something from the day before the game the day of the game and right right before the game and it's like so much film i had to put in and just to see the fact that he actually said that about me it kind of surprised me because we never talked on the court no we was always at each other head and we wasn't he was nobody budging he had thrown elbow out through elbow it'd be one of those type of uh competitive battles but it was it was a big loss for for all of us in basketball yes it was what what made what made him so tough just his relentlessness uh his mentality just seek and destroy uh he comes to the game some days he might not even adapt or some days he just might be real quiet with a you know his jaws get tight right here anytime his jaws get tight right there you know he's trying to shoot at least 25 attempts and the field goes so i just know he's not backing down and there's no shot that is that's going to discourage him he might miss his first eight but in the fourth quarter you just better believe he he's that confident to shoot the next five and you don't have a lot of superstars like that and he don't mind taking the plane and you know i've been around this league a lot of times i've seen guys shy away from those moments and he's a guy that never done that and uh i'm just being honest with everybody i wanted to link with cole because kobe and i had like how can you not listen to me cope and i had like a a different a different connect like when colburn shaq went up went on late day little thing a lot of people went with shaq a lot of people didn't even with cole you know code whatever i wanted one of the very few that just stayed with him and just i was a neutral guy anyway i show everybody love you love dogs but cold respect yeah dog like like like real like real cat star if you ever notice he never really got into it with somebody that he really respected you know what i'm saying like i watched when you and him went out and you you threw the ball he flinched it was a form of respect there that he was they was talking nobody noticed but they was talking same things like i wish you would hit me with this ball you got more respect than me than that so him and matt was i already knew that but players know this yeah yeah and then you already know who i'm if we get into it and we get the tech it's verbal we bump and we bumping i'm already knowing what he's saying to me without even talking so that's how we really real like not even thinking that's how players actually was talking and dealing with each other so whenever i would watch him get into it with somebody and he actually would get into it it was either because he didn't respect him and it went like that or he respect them and then went a whole nother way we're starting to build a culture at usa basketball he chauncey billups and jason kidd were added to add veteran leadership to lebron and carmelo and you know those those guys who are great guys and so we're getting ready to uh to get ready for beijing and uh so i'm with my staff in vegas a couple days before the team comes in and 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 he went to a private room and i said what do you need he said i i need to ask you a favor and i s i said yeah what is it and 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 seven 50-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 you know i want to guard the best perimeter player and then he pauses and you know his eyes he and jordan have the same had the same eyes they killed you with their eyes and and he leans forward and he said coach i promise yeah i'll destroy him i i got holy i said this is good so uh we go we have a team meeting and the first practice he doesn't take a shot he does not take one shot and he's playing defense so i call him over afterwards i said you know yo this destroy thing he says coach 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 smiled 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 and that he wanted to guard ginobili believe me he already had that figured out and he was going to prepare to guard you wasn't just to set an example for his team he had that vision crazy so we do play argentina in the semis and we're beating them by 20 points and ginobili gets hurt so now you think we're going to win by 40. and it becomes a six point game because now he's not interested anymore that's who he is that's what he wants god bless him like we had a he gonna be mad at me for this but look we had a blowout we got blue out at uh in portland he was getting blew out in um in portland so everybody um kobe's in the locker room just waiting for everybody to come in and you know everybody down there got kobe's on the team so yeah uh he came into the locker room and he um we got beat pretty bad and um he i don't think he liked the way we played and he said from now on out every time down the court i touched the ball y'all gonna learn what it's like to play with kobe bean frog come in he said y'all playing like blah blah soft and um how y'all gonna wear these shoes and y'all soft ain't what we do here in l.a so i'm not thinking nothing of it he tells everybody to take these shoes off they cool before i'm like what what's wrong with you man nah take them off take them all see they're looking like okay but i just started grabbing people's shoes and just throwing through them all in the trash oh wow this don't represent the you know the lakers and all that i'm like dawg until y'all get it right y'all can't wear no kobe's no so nick young playful ass we go we shower and we come back walk in the locker room y'all better throw that the ball there's gonna be some around here like nick never took anything serious though yeah but we just got the kicked out of us and cobra and going for it yeah you know what i'm saying and so i just think mentally like he meant that right you know what i'm saying so the shoe thing was pretty funny because uh nick young wore adidas and i wore peek um so it wasn't a personal problem for us so we thought it was hilarious and you know nick and i were the only two guys in the locker room uh when this was happening and so we thought it was the funniest thing in the world uh that it was happening because it didn't affect it didn't affect us personally but um that's just who he was you know and that band was all of two games and then everybody was back wearing the shoes how driven was cold and how did how did that rub off on you i learned from this dude just by even just from just watching him man he said he was better than mike you could tell though he felt that way i said what but you gotta understand his job it ain't too many dudes that play in the nba that's black yo and that really mean it and they heart like that's growing up right now like i'm gonna be better than lebron james no and that's where he chased his whole life was to be just as good or mentioned with michael jordan i remember saying i need to get six i want to be able to sit at the same table with mike his his whole frame of mind his whole he had 63. and that was 61. in the third quarter he and i did the tnt special and he talked about when we first met i didn't remember that i remember him coming to the locker room and he was you know he was looking for penny and you know him and penny you know i guess penny was you know too too busy for him whatever and then he came to me and and asked for autograph and pitch and i was like sure young fella i didn't even know that like even when we played together like he never told me that but look he was a guy that when he came in in 1718 he knew he wanted to be the best player in the world and uh you know we had we definitely had the big brother little brother relationship and people ask me all the time if we had all over to do again what would i do different and the answer was nothing we definitely pushed each other and was able for us to win three out of four unfortunately the business of basketball kicked in i i wanted to do other things and he was really able to shine and you know take over you know make a name for himself but again he's he's gone too soon he'll never be forgotten but i can bothfully say that we are the most enigmatic controversial most dominant one-two punch little too big ever created and we will never be duplicated i don't care what you say and i don't care who each other compares to it it'll never be another kobe shack ever again it got kind of interesting playing against them because after a while you know i get to study in the triangle i'm knowing sometimes you flash and sometimes you might you know set a back screen like feel broad the offense feels exactly the triangle offense and um i studied it so much and sometimes i would have to deny him when he get hot and it would be funny because he'll look at powell and uh he know that i noticed that i'm over playing he'll get to talking in spanish really so but that was a counter what i'm saying right so okay if i'm denying okay now he's going back though and i was like yo you speaking in spanish now let me get ready for the counter and he just did a little creative things like that to try to get an edge and um like i said he never shot a shot today he didn't like and he worked hard he crashed the offensive glass a lot no one pretty much talks about that a lot great rebound a great defender um man i could just go on about coming so i was one of the guys when he was a rookie and a lot of guys were upset at him because back then you could bring beer in the locker room and when we got him on the team it was like no more beer oh man man you're missing everything and i think that was kind of the thing that when guys were hazing somebody kind of pushed kobe away from a lot of guys because back then you weren't used to an 18 year old kid coming in league and he's a good 18 year old kid he's going to take someone's spot and so a lot of guys would kind of know standoffish to him but for me i'm saying he's a part of team he's a basketball player you love this guy because he's such a competitor and that's the first thing i know in the very first practice we were going through a walk through and he was going 100 miles an hour i'm like dude calm down it's a walk-through but he was that type of competitor and that's what made everybody on our team better because you knew if you didn't come with it that day you're gonna get embarrassed well as the competitor um you know you want to win more than anybody and i just remember when i had a chance to match up with them finally because the first one was ray guard and then i asked to switch on can i guard kobe let me let me you know let me go to the pivotal moment he was living garcon he was giving you guys some time i remember when i when i first got on and i'm leaning on i'm breathing hard on him i got that from kevin garnett and he just shot me with an elbow right to my ribs like twice and i was like hold on like i'm like he's like well we shouldn't have came over you gonna come over here you're gonna take this pain and i was like this guy right here man he just don't stop with the little tricks and he just wanted to just kill me like straight up he would like grab me toss me elbow me and everything he could and um he the the most competitive player i ever played against like by far i mean it was just like a new challenge like oh you wanna want me to come over here now paul you want some of this and it was just like wow all right i gotta be ready to be embarrassed on national tv but you know i'm up for it yeah i told this story before about how we played during those regular season it was like day before all-star break and we were beating up pretty good in okc and he just like you can basically say you can have this game you can't sit at my table i got uh at that time did you have five yeah yeah they have five championships so it was just like you guys are playing well but you don't know what it feels like to hit them at the top you know and that was that was it look that was a nice little jab right there you know as a young player you feel like you're coming up quick and you feel like you're establishing yourself and then you got a guy who's on another level as far as accomplishments and experience just pushed you back down to another level so it was humbling but it was also motivation and when he came approached me at the all-star game and asked him how to become how to get make first team off defense and i sat there at the um the center court and taught him a lot of things and he made the uh first team all defense with me that year i said this young kid it has a lot of different a lot of different things in him he's got a lot of a different mentality and he kept asking me stuff every time he played me and i posted him up and i got it he would always come over to me and and sneak it in my ear oh gee man why you keep killing me on these post ups man you gotta teach me that what should i do and that was just a big thing for me to hear that and to respect that and i couldn't do nothing but respecting and teach him the game because i know i'm a lot older than him and i was going to be leaving the game soon and i want to see somebody in that game that imitates the things that i do and can be dominant at it and this kid was one of them guys and i and i taught him everything that i needed to talk we used to stay after practice at um in l.a and he we used to t i used to teach him the post up game then he used to fade away he took it all he'll face you up and go at you and it was things that he did like that and we used to do drills about defense i used to get him and i used to throw a tennis ball back and forth and he used to catch him with one hand catch him one hand and slide you know what i i learned and he got so good at it where he used to guard all the top guys and that's what i started telling him stop straying away from all the top guys if they if the top guy on the team is there you guard him guard him all night and then you take his heart from him and then you go down and kill him on the other hand and that's what he started doing and that's what he started dog i love that in that 2010 playoff series i would have to say because you know he shot his rush percentage that year yeah you know uh but it was nothing getting in the way of him getting that championship when i look back man he went and did it he he won it without shaq things of that nature and um do you remember any little incidents that happened i was just about to bring it up go ahead so it was one one play when he's going to the to the um to the rim he gets fouled i get my hand on it probably could have been a jump ball he was getting a little frustrated so he threw an elbow boom i caught it his stomach and i had throw one wrecked real quick took the ball and it was that kind of battle you know what i mean so yeah but he got he got his little tactics man it's kobe bryant man one of the best that i ever played against man did you ever have any concerns about jumping straight to high school from high school right into the pros no no no i mean i had people around me um you know since ninth grade because i knew that this is something that i wanted to do something i was considering since that time so i kind of try to prepare myself you know leading up to that point so i talked to as many nba players as i could i had my father there so basically when it came time to make the jump i knew what i was getting into and then kobe kobe you know kobe i just remember kobe a young lion you were just like you know how young lions hunt you know what i mean they're like man i can get out there and give me a kill you know what i mean just just put me in the gang cause it was over there oh he was over there hungry i just seen it in his eyes right so when he got gang he was real uh i'm just gonna say it wild right he was kind of wild i remember calling my brothers at home like man i just played against the rawls young 18 year old that's probably out there i mean i ain't never played against a young boy that got it like this so i'm 24 25 big boy you know what i mean 220 224 225 playing big you know jumping doing all that what he doing but i was i was a grown man so in my mind no young boy was going you know i wasn't going for that you know what i mean i'm typing to the pain we're gonna blow the blow up whatever we gonna do i wasn't going for that but i seen the greatness saying yeah right then where i call home i mean this young boy is gonna be nice fast forward to uh three years late let me watch them go to work and i'm doing my thing and then they traded at him put him in the game so his i guess fourth years when he really got on right something like that i think eddie was gone he got in the game and he never looked back right he never looked back i start to see him fourth fifth sixth year league so my seventh eighth or whatever you know what i mean six seven eight i'm seeing we going at kobe a big boy now you know what i mean period so we're gonna blow football then he wouldn't laugh and he took over the league though that's all i could say without another level he took over the league bro you know what i mean i know he was mimicking mike i grew up on mike like dudes grew up on staff and kobe and all that so i get it right but so one thing i will say is that i've seen him come from that young boy to take over the league i mean i think on some level we all feel like we haven't given our all or our best in everything we've ever done whether sometimes it's at home whether it's at work uh with our job with our hobbies whatever it is and there was something about kobe that i think reassured us that it's possible you know to um to give every ounce of yourself and literally exhaust yourself to be great at what you want to do to be great at what you love to do he often spoke of the sacrifices it required to do that though and i think we appreciate that and that's why we're torn we don't see many people with that level of dedication to who they are and what they're trying to become uh and he did it imperfectly you know and we oftentimes judge them while he was going through it while he was doing it but um i think looking back on it all you know now we a lot of us are going to celebrate a man that we um you know we probably should have been celebrating much sooner well i i i met colby in high school and and he came on to our uh uh aau team and he walked in and he really didn't say much and he came off the bench originally and as our as our sixth man to our team so that tells you our team was pretty good and then you add a 16 17 year old kobe bryant and he comes in as our point guard shooting at half court jump shots shoots an air ball the first time the second time he comes down he shoots at half court he makes it what statement do you need to take to make after that yep but he did not walk into your team and say no one's going to punk me so i guess that's just reserved for the lakers when i first get to the lakers shaq tells me if you and kobe get into it as 10 g's in the locker [Laughter] room [Laughter] how many days a week you want me to get into it with him this is three days in the practice he's like a 10 g's up there i'm like man come on you playing man the 10 g's and one dollar bills man if you ever get into it grab that i can't believe i do like it i'm like man these boys is crazy bro i remember a lot of things about uh kobe especially during those finals i could finally tell pete is i was i was scared to death facing coach i mean because you know he was scary man you just didn't know what to expect and i just remember one play i was trapping the pick and roll and he kind of got around the screen and shot the three in i remember coach tibbs yelling at me like perk keep him in front of you so in the timeout i was like hey tia if you want to come out here and try to guard him how about you come out here and try to do it but he was the ultimate competitor you know kobe when you think about kobe it was another story when i was in oklahoma city and i remember we was playing them in the playoffs and we was trying to trap them and you know i'm trying to give my team some life and bring that to nasty and he goes to the free throw line i'm like hey ain't none of that up in here today and i was like you know we we we're going to lock this up today and he was like man hey you know what perk i got 30 000 reasons why you can't stop me today so i was oh wow on the trash yeah we when we talked to kobe that he said that was one of the hardest hits in his career losing to you guys in that uh the finals of no 8. yeah i mean the thing about that he got it back oh that's the one i'll never forget that one he got back from us in 2010. oh man i know he said that was the sweetest one too yeah he said that was the one yeah the loss to y'all was the toughest and the win was the sweetest doing without shaq yeah yeah doing it without shaq oh man that was cold was he we had four all-stars dude you know that yeah for all he was the only awesome him in power he had two yeah pogba saw but he toughened pog us all up oh man cause that first finals we've ran through pogba oh i've seen kobe obliterate pal gasol and i poke out to the side like bro you can't let this happen just just hear what he's saying but let me just he made you know how crazy i am i had to like you good yeah it was that bad like good pals head but like you said he he made him a lot tougher he made him he made him a hall of famer yeah yeah he made him a hall of famer rob kobe powell just another skill hero i don't think you could teach dog but kobe puts some of his dog in powell and it's funny that you recognize yeah i saw the difference in this game whatever so this is 2008 so they had just lost to the celtics in the finals like tragically if memory serves and so he opens up the paper and there's like this article about it and there's a picture of paul pierce so i see it we kind of were and you know like it's kobe bryant listen it's 2008 we're all sitting there kobe bryant sits down and pours a glass of wine we're like what the you know and then we look over and he's tearing out the picture of paul pierce so he cuts it out and he folds it up he puts in his pocket and like we're all looking at him you know like what's what's going on he's like motivation we're like and then he proceeded to like chug his wine pour another glass chug it poured the third and he was like basically like he looks over and he's like now i'm on the head of you guys we're like okay like we didn't know we didn't know we were racing cool but like i think those two things like back to back i was like oh that's what like that's who he is like that's what this is you know it was funny for whatever reason um during that day or that night when where michael said hey i'm going to dinner and we're going to catch up i was like oh great okay you're in town and and when you go to dinner with him you always know there's you know there's like there's going to be people you got to sneak them in you know so all right all right i'll i'll get there and you know i always try to get there like 10 15 minutes earlier so that way wherever however he's coming in through the back the front side or whatever yeah like someone else was going to meet us here i was like okay i didn't even think to ask who's coming and and lo and behold uh you know you know mr bryant the late kobe bryant shows up and it was great and uh it was one of those moments that was great because you saw the the respect that they both have of one another um but they couldn't help but turn on the competitive spirit and they just had this this virtual dialogue if you will and i didn't say a word i just sat there and i just watched where um they were just saying how the game would be played if they caught the ball here i just remember it well if i catch the ball in the left wing with the live dribble how would you defend me and they in the detail that they were going over these abstract ideas that's what really caught my attention was yeah okay well how are you gonna catch the ball like who asks you know who asked those questions you know what you know what's your pivot foot you know what's the score of the game and then they just did this in all these different places how would you defend me if i had it here what would you do if i was and i just remember thinking you know i i just had the pleasure of watching like their geniuses and the fact that they didn't have to actually play a game that they could actually just play it in their mind to me was way more impressive than actually watching them play because clearly you know you would you would want to see them at their peak but they were able to mentally play this game and it was one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen yeah and i remember the the the conclusion of all of this i mean this went on for quite some time was that they both concluded that they only agreed on one thing that michael jordan had bigger hands than him and that was the deciding factor i think you can see special talents in people okay a lot of people have spell special talent but they waste it or they never use it and to watch the growth spur with him to watch the trials and tribulations because in practice he would dribble through five guys and make a dunk okay you can't win that way and it took him a while to understand that there was a process for him to get involved and play on a team in a team that could win he became the leader of the pack he i think because he started so young that he resonated with so many people the young kids who have hopes and dreams like he did watching him go to a summer big game okay the place was jam-packed and my son relayed a story to me just today about and i obviously was there i think he scored 29 points as a 17 year old kid and after the game he remarked to my son boy that was really easy and you start to think think to yourself 17 years of age you can't even sign a contract yet uh but he was just he was just the more you're around him people saw this serious side he was fun you he could laugh could laugh at himself but as i say he brought joy to so many young kids that that had the same admiration and same desire to do something unique

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Keywords: kobe bryant, mamba mentality, kobe bryant motivation, kobe bryant obsession, kobe bryant quotes, kobe bryant career, kobe bryant interview, the mind of kobe bryant, the mind of black mamba, kobe bryant motivational speech, kobe bryant muse, kobe bryant stories, kobe bryant story, all the smoke kobe, jj reddick podcast kobe

Id: q2qfy_5pyac

Length: 35min 28sec (2128 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021