Paul Pierce has shared plenty of stories about Kobe Bryant over the years, but this one might be the most telling about who Kobe really was. Not in a playoff game or in the Finals. In a commercial shoot. And even then, Kobe refused to give an inch.
Appearing on Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast, Paul Pierce recalled a Nike commercial shoot where he and Kobe Bryant were supposed to go one-on-one for a short scene.
“I always tell the one story in the commercial where you shot the Nike commercial, where me and him had a part where I’m going one-on-one with him. And you know, it’s a commercial. It’s like, all right, you know, make a couple of moves, take the shot.”
“I’m like, all right, I got the ball. You know, I’m gonna go between my legs, do a little in and out, step back or something. He keep knocking the ball out. I’m like, dog, we got to shoot the shot. Like, you know, you got to let me get the shot.”
“He didn’t want me to get the shot in the commercial. In the commercial. I’m like, damn. So now I got to go full like him. Like, I got to really want me to really get, make a real move. I’m like, damn, that was just him though. Just so competitive. It was like, nah, I ain’t letting you get this off.”
“I was like, damn, he’s just like this all the time. And so now I was like, damn, I always tell that story. Like, damn, it’s a commercial, dog. Come on, we supposed to act. Act like we playing against each other. He was really playing.”
What makes the story better is who it is coming from. Pierce was not just another All-Star. He was Kobe’s primary rival in the Eastern Conference during the late 2000s. They met in two NBA Finals, with the Boston Celtics winning in 2008 and the Los Angeles Lakers getting revenge in 2010.
Pierce famously outplayed Kobe in the 2008 Finals and won Finals MVP. And Kobe never forgot it. Sue Bird once told a story from the 2008 Olympics about Kobe cutting Pierce’s photo out of a newspaper and keeping it as motivation. That detail alone explains why Kobe was never going to let Pierce score in a commercial, of all places.
It is easy to romanticize Kobe’s mentality now, but this story strips it down to its core. He was not performing toughness. He was not playing a role. He simply refused to lose any possession, no matter how meaningless it looked to everyone else.
For Paul Pierce, it was a moment of clarity. For everyone else, it is just another reminder of why Kobe Bryant was wired differently.
