Throughout his incredible career, Kobe Bryant was known for being a lot of things. But maybe, being a smooth talker wasn’t one of them, especially when it came to his teammates.
Kobe thought and felt like he was better than everybody else on the court. And while that confidence often paid off, sometimes it didn’t.
That was in full display when Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t suit up for a game vs. the Celtics and Kobe decided to take 47 shots, knocking down just 17 of them. When asked about why he took that many shots, he gave an answer for the ages:
“I felt like I had a better chance at making a shot 1-on-5 as opposed if my teammates were wide open,” Kobe said.
Now, his former teammate Brian Shaw gave more insight on what happened after that infamous quote, explaining how Kobe’s teammate of his teammates actually brought out the best of the team:
“So we get back to L.A. and we’re watching film, and Phil Jackson piped in the interview as part of the film session.
“And then said, ‘how do you guys feel about what your teammate said about you?’ And Rick Fox stood up and he got real emotional. He was like, ‘Man, how do you think that makes us feel?’ and was going off on Kobe. And Kobe just looked at him right in the eyes and said, ‘Rick, you can get mad all you want, but that’s really how I feel.’
“And so I had to kind of take a step back and in a weird way, it makes you feel like, you know what, if you gotta go in a fox hole with somebody, that’s the mentality of a guy you want to have that feels that he can take everybody out by himself.”
That’s just classic Kobe Bryant right there. He wasn’t just talking. He truly believed that he could take everybody on Earth one-on-one.
That may not be what you think of positive reinforcement or leadership but hey, it got him 5 rings.
