Los Angeles Lakers icon Kobe Bryant didn’t get along with too many of his teammates during his NBA career, and he certainly wasn’t on good terms with a certain Jeremy Lin. Bryant and Lin had infamously fallen out during their time together on the Lakers, and the latter spoke about the relationship completely breaking down on the Above the Rim with DH 12 podcast.
“He was upset at me over something that I was actually trying to do, but the coach was telling me not to do it,” Lin said. “And so he was like, ‘No, don’t. Don’t foul him.’ I was like, ‘No, we got to foul him.’ So Kobe was like, ‘Foul him.’ I was like, ‘I know I’m trying to,’ but I’m telling the coach and the coach is telling me, ‘Don’t foul.’ So then I’m like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’
“So it ended up being something where he had given me really bad body language,” Lin continued. “… I texted him, and I was like, ‘Hey man, I really don’t appreciate the body language,’ and he came back with a sharp response, and then I went back at him, but it ended cordial, where I was like, ‘I’m not saying that you can’t teach me. You’re obviously like a hundred times the player I am. I want to learn anything and everything I can from you. I’m just asking, can you just say it and do it in a way that’s like respectful to me as a man?'”
Lin says Bryant appeared to understand what he was trying to say. He even gave some advice to the then-young guard, and all seemed well.
“He sent over a text with some advice,” Lin stated. “He’s like, ‘Let’s start with this.’ I was like, ‘I got you. I’m going be focused on that. I’m be working on this. I’m going be thinking this of exactly what you’re saying.’ I’m just trying to get better. I’m trying to help this team more. We didn’t speak for the next five months.”
That would be a shock to anyone. Lin mentioned that this all began over something that happened in a game, which wasn’t what we’d initially believed. It was assumed that Bryant’s brutal trash talk to Lin during an infamous practice session in December 2014 had led to them completely falling out. The 37-year-old touched on that incident here as well.
“Everybody has a different form of communication,” Lin said. “… I actually do better when I’m yelled at, because I grew up with coaches who always yelled at me. So, actually, whenever I got yelled at, I played better. But it’s nuanced. If you yelled at me and you’re like, ‘Yo, what are you doing? Get your head out your a**. Lock in so we can win this game.’ It’s like you believe that if I lock in, we’re going to win this game ’cause you believe in who I am.
“But if you’re just talking down to me,” Lin added. “Yelling at me… You have zero respect for me or whatever, that hits me differently, where it’s not like, ‘Yo, I believe in you, and you’re letting us down. Yo, wake the hell up.’ It’s like, ‘I can’t stand you. Get out of my [face].’ That type of energy was what kind of messed with me.”
In that viral clip, Lin can be seen missing a shot as Bryant was challenging him. He later turned the ball over as well.
Lin says the clip doesn’t show the times when he actually hit shots as Bryant was talking trash. He added that trash talk was a constant at scrimmage and that he wasn’t bothered by it.
Lin had been traded to the Lakers in 2014, and he’d only end up spending one season with the franchise. He averaged 11.2 points, 2.6 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game in 2014-15, and then signed with the Charlotte Hornets in free agency.
Bryant and Lin would come face-to-face as opponents in 2015-16, but there were no ill feelings then. The latter revealed that the former came up to him and inquired about him and his family. Lin says he and Bryant eventually patched up their relationship as well.
