- Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol became teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers halfway through the 2007-08 season
- Kobe joined Team USA for the 2008 Summer Olympics to help bring a gold medal back to America
- Kobe wanted to show his Team USA teammates his mentality by running over Gasol, who played for Spain, during a game
Kobe Bryant was one of the fiercest competitors the game of basketball has ever seen. Kobe didn’t care if you were his opponent or his teammate. If you got in his way, he was going to let you know it.
One perfect example of this is Kobe’s treatment of Samaki Walker, who Kobe smacked after Walker didn’t pay a bet he lost to Kobe. The idea for Kobe was if you didn’t work as hard as him, then you were going to be punished.
The only problem is even if you did perform up to Kobe’s standards, as former teammate Pau Gasol did, it didn’t mean you were safe from Kobe’s antics… Especially if you found yourself on the opposite team during the Olympics.
Kobe Showed His Team USA Teammates His Mamba Mentality During 08 Olympics
The United States men’s basketball team was looking to recover in the 2008 Olympics after underperforming in the 2004 Olympics, where they only won the bronze medal. So, what was Team USA’s biggest plan to win back the gold medal? Bring in the game’s best player in 08, Kobe Bryant.
Up to this point, Kobe had never played in the Olympics, but seeing his nation’s team suffer an embarrassing output in the 04 Olympics inspired Kobe to want to prove to the world that Team USA was still the dominant basketball country.
The 2007-08 NBA season was a special one for Kobe. He won his only MVP award after averaging 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game. This season also marked the first time Kobe made it to the NBA Finals without his dominant center teammate Shaquille O’Neal.
One of the reasons why the Los Angeles Lakers won 57 games was because of the addition of Pau Gasol, who they traded for in February 2008. Gasol was Kobe’s new center teammate, but his game flowed better with Kobe’s than Shaq’s, allowing Kobe to be the number one option.
Despite their instant success and chemistry together, the Lakers ended up losing in the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics in six games. By the time the Olympics came around, Kobe and Pau were on separate teams, as Pau played for his home country Spain.
Before the first game between Team USA and Team Spain, Kobe made a statement to his teammates that startled them while showing how fierce of a competitor Kobe was. This was given to us in Netflix’s Redeem Team documentary.
“Kobe said he gonna set the tone at the start of the game. And he said, ‘I’m running through Pau’s f*king chest,'” LeBron James said. “Man, you trippin. That’s your teammate. You ain’t about to do that.”
“He was like, ‘No, he ain’t my teammate right now. F**k him. Get up,'” Carmelo Anthony said.
“We was like, ‘Oh, ain’t no way we’re losing this game,” LeBron said. “We about to beat the sh*t out of Spain.”
Team USA did, in fact, beat Spain 119-82 behind 18 points from LeBron and 11 points from Kobe. The two teams met one more time in the gold medal game, where Kobe saved the day by hitting big shots down the stretch of the game.
Team USA won the gold by defeating Team Spain 118-107. Kobe scored 20 to go along with his clutch shot-making, and Dwyane Wade led the team in scoring with 27 points.
There’s no doubt that the message Kobe Bryant set in that first meeting with Pau Gasol and Spain helped Team USA by setting the tone for the Olympics. Once the rest of the team bought into the Mamba Mentality, the rest of the world had no chance of winning the gold.
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