THE MIND OF KOBE BRYANT - CHALLENGE

what are you most proud of what what that you've accomplished it's it's tough it's been a there's been a long career you know 17 years it's hard to pinpoint in my professional career the thing that I'm most proud of I think it's fun now it's definitely not over but it's fun to kind of challenge you know from a seventeen year old kid and kind of challenge what's normal or what the system was you know that that's bells pretty cool like you're always going after it always going after always going after it and if there's a challenge that ensues oh good I want to see how I stack up to that so you go after you go after it and it's just so it's fun it's like you get a chance to compete against opponents and you get a chance to see where you stack up against them saying I want to see it maybe I'm not good enough today with that that's fine I'll be good enough the next time I see you though you know and you get a chance to always measure yourself and it's it's just fun to do that well it's been tough but you know when I have tough situations I try to look at most challenges I don't look at them as as you know something where it becomes a burden or something that's heavy on my shoulders I look at it as a challenge is something that you know it's just a puzzle that you have to figure out no matter what the grades you have the scores to go to college why the NBA ultimate challenge no if I was 40 years old I'm sitting back and I'm looking back I went to college for failure MBA maybe I had a great career maybe not and I'm starving that down my mom could I answer that challenge could I've been smiling for the challenge of the everyday and that's something I didn't want to have on my on my shoulders but it's really acceptable for me it's all about challenges and you know I just kind of sit back and say do I want to take on another challenge you know I hear players you know especially my peers they'll say well he's only this good because he plays him Shaq if I play with Shaq I'd have three rings or if you know if you Lisa killing they'll never win another title and you hear this type of stuff coming from your peers that bothered you I don't like that I don't like this so I had to sit down and evaluate you know well is this a challenge that I want to take on and you know that's pretty much the process that was kind of going through and and then you kind of got to go with your gut yeah go with your gut and see are we creating something that's been done before or is this a project something that nobody's seen before and is it a project that we're not sure that we can do if the answer is yes then nine times out of 10 we're going for that one all right cuz that means we're pushing boundaries a little bit what is your advice to young kids - you know - to face the faceless adversity how do you persevere well like if you because you you have that chemical makeup to fight through it yeah not all kids do but but you you every kid every person has the ability to put one foot in front of the other what's that by the time right so like if you're saying okay I'm gonna climb Mount Everest at the bottom of the mountain and you look up you're going but if you break it down into sections you just one foot in front of the other one step at a time next you know you're at the top of the mountain the process loving the process love and the daily grind of putting the puzzle together it seems seems like this generation seems to be really concerned with the end result of things versus understanding and appreciating the journey to get there just be most important the trials and tribulations that come along with it successes you have failures but it's all part of the end right the in-game when I see a lot of time from young players is you know it don't try they'll push and all of a sudden they get hit with some adversity nah do something else I said of staying with it and you just just stay with it guys you know a lot of guys just kind of give up on it because it's not happening now what limitations you know I may have I'm a figure my way through that and figure out a way to be effective a cool man we got one really loud pop I mean it was really really loud this big pop he just looked at me and he said well that's a good thing or a bad thing either that pop means you're gonna be able to play you're gonna be able to move around that means I was just really broken your ankle and you're done so walk around tell me how you feel cool then I started walking and it felt good then I started jogging and it felt better it's swelling still there it was still really big but the pain wasn't there as much it took me a little while to get going get used to it but once I got used to it it was back to business as usual we look to be in and out of worry in the world he said I've got you big fella and I'm gonna take over [Applause] also knew they weren't double-teaming me I'm Ali you know I was 21 years old I don't think the paces really had any idea of the confidence or the ambition that was inside of me if they knew they would have blitzed [Music] the Lakers have a 3-1 lead we're safe found out my monster was this game just became awful awful lot more interesting than it was it was just fun for me you know I laughed about it it's when I play relaxes if I was in a backyard but if I had to make a decision I probably would have wound up going to Carolina just because really yeah because because of the competition so the year before my scene before I graduated Vince Carter went to Carolina and the year before he was the best guard in the country so I'm looking I'm saying yo I want to play against him every single day because I want to get better I want to measure myself against these guys you know I want to measure myself against competing against a Vince Carter you know a Phelps rush you wildest every day that's something I was really looking forward to doing Robert Horry says he's never seen somebody who can see a move another guy does and pick it up as quickly as you explain what you'll do well I know exactly he's referring to I mean I I watched we played against the Houston Rockets and and I'm still a young kid who's 18 19 years old I'm watching the Kim Olajuwon up close and he's doing his dream shake and I'm just kind of watching and I asked Robert Robert how did it I think image to practice that move because they played together and won a couple championships together so Robert kind of went through you know how do watch the Keane practice and stuff like that and the next practice go right to the post and I started I started doing a dream shake and then became that exact move you know why do you think you were able to pick it up so quickly because I've been playing since I was two so like you know I every move up but that's not funny right there are plenty of basketball players who've been playing a long time yeah not since two though and as for as long as I have you know just by osmosis you pick up so many things and your muscle memory is that that you can watch something and just go out right away and and do it you know as time goes on I'm sitting there seventy-eight years old and I'm gonna be wondering if I could have come back from this injury I don't want to wonder I want to find out we got to get to destiny I want to see man we got into that game yeah if the critics are out there saying he's done he'll never come back well maybe you're right maybe you're not but let's find out take us back to that day against uh Phoenix Wright when you injured your Achilles as Golden State it was it was it was hard man because the Achilles injury is the worst injury for an athlete it's like the works it's like the the kiss of death and when I ruptured my Achilles eye I knew what happened I knew the severity of the injury and I didn't know if I was gonna come back from it yeah in the locker room you were crying yeah yeah I didn't think this is it like my career could be over right on it when you were coming off the court what emotions just pissed and sad you know worked really hard to get to this point it's pissed well what I did is you know I went home and I was just really angry and angry I was angry I was mad ain't I worked so hard for us to get to the playoffs and to have a chance to another championship and this happened so I had a lot of anger and then from the anger then I was sad and then you start feeling bad for yourself and then you say all right okay I'm done being a baby okay what am I gonna do now because I can't sit here and give up that's not an option so now what how long was this cycle from this anger one night one night 'one night one night who's because you you started writing in the middle right you wrote that uh you you you really that dinner was okay what are you gonna do so yeah one night but then you know didn't you start it's a process you look at process what am I gonna do what can I control surgery will do the surgery come out of the surgery recover from their physical therapy okay physical therapy piece by piece by piece by piece by piece start running back on a court shower broke things down into sections and said okay I'm gonna focus on resting right now this is it and we'll focus on moving my toes and then walking and then so you look at every challenge at every step and that's how you're able to be resilient and come back from these things the night that you got hurt you did all the soul-searching the Facebook post which is the worst thing ever wondering if you should just pack it in right now that you're basically almost out the other side you look back through this whole experience how would you describe it well I mean it's one of those moments I think we all have moments like this in life where it just seems like that days you never want to add you know it just seems like the moment that you're in just feels like the darkest moment to you you personally feel like I don't know if I can do this again I don't know if I can come back you know and you have to issue that challenge to yourself and try to respond to it I was really tired man just tired locker room upset with dejected and thinking about this mountain man to overcome I mean this is a long process you know one sure I could do it your kids walk in you're like you know I got a set example you know daddy's gonna be fine i'ma do it you know work hard just go from there yeah I knew right away it was the Achilles I knew it was torn I was hoping for some kind of magical healing power where I could reattach the Achilles by rubbing it that point you got try anything you know try everything but I knew what happened and you know you know I got up I was just trying to walk and trying to find a way to to manage it for a few more minutes there are a lot of moments in sports where the outside world views them has a reaction to it an inspirational reaction to it whereas us has the athletes simply see was the moment is right in front of us and for me the moment was like it was very black-and-white can I figure out how to walk through this or play through this for his last few minutes of this game [Music] but the Lakers down by two and they now try to figure out who's here wait I could play through it and I'm just gonna shoot the free throws I'm gonna put all the pressure on my right leg and shoot these free throws because I did not want them selecting who is who's gonna shoot the free throw on our team and cost us a couple points barely make it to the free-throw line this is my responsibility to do this and so that's what I was thinking [Music] I went out and shot the free-throws and then walking back I could feel the tendon start going up higher and higher and I was like you know it's probably not a good idea for me to continue I told the official that after the second free-throw we were gonna foul to stop the game so we could get him out and he walked on his own power to the locker room don't ever question the heart the emotions the grit [Music] that's the beauty of sports when you have moments like that that become bigger than the moment itself and inspire other people who asked what made sports great you've had tons and we've watched you tons of personal and professional challenges in your career this at the top of the list yeah you know but it's uh it's fueling me it's fueled me I can feel it already yeah I can feel it already it's just you know players at this stage of their career you know they pop Achilles and you know the pun didn't say they'd never come back to same so I can hear it already and it's pissing me off right now thinking about it and so so this isn't the last game really I'm just find it's appropriate that you asked that question from down there [Laughter] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Piotrekz Productions

Views: 278,398

Keywords: kobe bryant, mamba mentality, black mamba, the mind of kobe bryant, kobe bryant motivation, lakers 2019, kobe bryant interview, kobe bryant motivaional, kobe bryant workout, kobe bryant words of wisdom, kobe bryant obsession, lebron james kobe bryant, golden hoops

Id: BSn9KAw_WbY

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 27 2018