Kobe Bryant’s impending retirement has had tons of NBA players reminiscing about the Los Angeles Lakers legend. The latest to speak at length about Bryant’s impact on him and on basketball is Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving. In an interview with Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Irving spoke at length about what Bryant has meant to him, personally.
During the first round of last year’s playoffs, Irving tweaked his knee, eventually leadding to him missing the Finals in order to have surgery. Irving mentions that after the initial injury, he looked to Kobe for guidance:
During the Chicago series he was the first person I called when I had my knee issues. I asked him a few things. He knew a little bit about [Tom] Thibodeau’s defense and how they are going to corral me and what they are going to do knowing I’m hurt, and he just told me how to be more effective in the scoring areas as well as on the defensive end. We talked for about 30 minutes and he gave me as great a talk as I needed at that time. I was in a terrible mental space, knowing I couldn’t be as effective as I wanted to be. He was the first person I called and we’ve had a great dialogue over the last few years, so it’s been great.
Irving, whose relationship with Bryant started in a Team USA camp before the 2012 Olympics, seems to be very thankful for Bryant’s mentorship. To have a legendary player who is not even on the same team take time to help you get through an injury must be an incredible feeling.
Irving also spoke at length about Bryant’s retirement:
I texted him, I was like, ‘Man, you’ve allowed me to grow in my own space, but having guys like you that I can idolize and look up to, I’m going to take your legacy, or try to take your legacy even further and be on the same greatness wavelength as you.’ That’s something we all strive to do. Whether it happens or not, who knows? But for me, idolizing somebody like that, Kobe and ‘Bron (LeBron James), guys that I’ve been watching for a long time, when Kobe leaves the game, the game will never be the same.
Irving seems like a player who is genuinely wrapped up in making himself one of the greats. Having Bryant as a mentor and LeBron James as a teammate could ultimately lead to that.
Finally, Irving talked about Kobe’s legacy and what part of his game will be the most memorable:
Just the pure emotions that he has. For me that’s the biggest attribute that I’ve tried to emulate, just that emotion he comes with during the game and that seriousness that everyone is sort of afraid to have. When I say that, I mean going at everybody and anybody, that mentality on any given night, whether it’s a 2-guard or whether he’s playing against another great team, he’s coming with that same mentality every single game. That’s something that we all would try to emulate. That competitiveness comes with that emotion, and it translates out on the floor. You can see it even when talking in interviews. I’ve been watching interviews of Kobe since I was about 12 years old or 13, and you could just feel it in the camera when he’s looking at it. When he went down with his Achilles injury, you could just tell in his face that we weren’t there when he was shooting or running up and down the court to get 35 [points] per game, but he was putting his team in position to win and doing everything possible that no one was even aware of. All we could do was guess what he was doing, putting greatness out there on the floor. To me that was something great to see. I try to emulate that and take things from his game and turn it into my own. But he’s Kobe Bryant. There’s not going to be anybody like him.
Kobe’s passion and love of basketball has been one of the most well-known qualities of his long career. To hear an NBA player count that as what he tries to most emulate from Bryant’s game gives even more meaning to that legend. It is clear that many current NBA players, especially those who have grown up watching Bryant play, consider that the most memorable part of his career and what makes Bryant unique.
