Utah Jazz center Jusuf Nurkic came to the NBA all the way back in 2014, and in his very first preseason game, he got to play against the late great Kobe Bryant. Nurkic was with the Denver Nuggets at the time and spoke about his emotions before that clash against the Los Angeles Lakers on the Sofascore Podcast.
“My debut, full debut,” Nurkic said. “And my coach at the time was Brian Shaw. And I said, ‘Coach,’ and my English was so so at the time, especially speaking. Understand everything. I said, ‘Coach, I don’t know if I can do it.’ He said, ‘Do what?’ I said, ‘This game is going to be so emotional for me.’
“And I never had like, I guess idol,” Nurkic continued. “… But the fact I was walking out of the locker room, and I saw him in the hallway, he warming up against the wall, and I’m like, I don’t even know the place no more. I forgot everything, right?”
Nurkic was still so nervous that he didn’t even hear his name called at first during the game. When he did sub in, he remembers running the wrong way. Nurkic would eventually settle down, only for Bryant to try to get in his head by talking trash to him in his native Bosnian.
“I start playing, and I kind of little forget, and you kind of getting that competitiveness in a game, and then he start speaking my language,” Nurkic said. “… I mean, he was psycho, man. He was learning, I guess, all these languages so he can talk s*** like literally.
“So for me, it was, I guess, funny,” Nurkic added. “I was not taking that to whatever reason badly, but I was shocked that he was actually cursing in my language, that… I turned, and I thought it was somebody else, but it was him. And that’s kind of how special he was.”
That’s classic Bryant right there. It didn’t matter that it was just a preseason game or that this was just some rookie who had come over from Europe. He was going to try to unsettle Nurkic to gain an advantage.
This game on Oct. 6, 2014, was actually Bryant’s first since he fractured his left knee on Dec. 17, 2013. He finished with 13 points (5-12 FG), two rebounds, and five assists, as the Lakers won 98-95.
As for Nurkic, he had two points (1-8 FG), nine rebounds, three assists, and one block. He’d go on to have a solid debut season that saw him finish sixth in Rookie of the Year voting.
Kobe Bryant Could Talk Trash In Many Languages
Nurkic, who has agreed to stay with the Jazz on a two-year, $22 million contract, isn’t the first to share how Bryant tried to get into his head by speaking his language.
Hall of Famer Tony Parker shared that Bryant talked trash to him in French when they faced off in the playoffs. Parker said it didn’t work, but he couldn’t share what was said.
Bryant also famously got into it in Spanish with Luis Scola when Team USA took on Argentina in the 2008 Olympics. It got to the point where LeBron James appeared to tell him to relax.
Bryant didn’t let up after retirement either. Luka Doncic has shared that he talked trash to him in Slovenian in 2019 during a game between the Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks.
While Bryant may not have been able to speak much else in most of these other languages, he was actually fluent in Spanish and also in Italian. As for the reasons for it, he grew up in Italy and was married to a Mexican-American, Vanessa Bryant.
