Two days before Kobe Bryant’s jerseys will be retired at halftime during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant talked a bit about what Bryant has meant to him over his career.
The lessons started his rookie season, when Durant played against Bryant on Jan. 14, 2008. The Lakers beat the Sonics 123-121 in overtime, while Bryant took 44 shots, scoring 48 points, including the game-winner. But it was a play late in the game that Durant remembers best.
“It was my first first chase of fourth quarter basketball in the NBA, he fouled me all of the way up until I got the ball, it was a blatant foul, and the referee just stared at him, looked at him, and didn’t call the foul,” Durant said. “It was a level I knew I had to get to. That’s what made me realize that there’s certain players on different levels, and that you have to wait to get to that point…It was a great early lesson.”
Bryant gave Durant a tough time at the beginning of his career, once saying that he and James Harden didn’t deserve to talk to him.
“Maybe one day they’ll be able to sit at my lunch table,” Bryant said in 2012. “Right now we’re at two different lunch tables, man. The conversation’s pretty brief.”
But Durant got the last laugh that season. In fact, he said his favorite memory of Bryant was when the Thunder eliminated the Lakers in the second round of the playoffs in 2012.
“That was a proud moment, playing so well, and finally beating his team in the playoffs,” Durant said. “A couple of years before, they eliminated us in the first round. So I can say that I won in one-on-one against Kobe in the playoffs, not too many people can say that. But he does have five championships.”
Bryant was known for giving some guys around the league a tough time — he spoke his mind and sometimes hurt guys’ feelings. Durant said although that might not be his exact approach, he said Bryant earned the right to be unfiltered.
“Once you’re that great, you pretty much can do whatever you want, as far as how you approach the game, the tone, the chip you want to play with,” Durant said.
Bryant retired in 2016 following a 20-season career. He’s widely considered one of the greatest players of all-time, and Durant said he’s happy he no longer has to go against him.
“I don’t miss him as a competitor playing against him, obviously,” Durant said. “He was such an all-world competitor, all-world just basketball player. Everything you want in a basketball player, you had in Kobe.”
That being said, Durant misses what Bryant brought out of him.
“I do miss that intensity that he brought to the court. He raised everybody’s — opponents, coaching staff — just everybody’s level of play,” Durant said. “That’s what great players do. You can learn a lot from watching somebody like that.”
Durant said he and Bryant had dinner together when the Lakers came to Oklahoma City in 2016, and their conversation still stands out in his head.
“The stuff that we were talking about was next level as far what he wanted to do when he was done playing, his visions as a business man, how he wanted to leave his mark as a basketball ambassador,” Durant said. “There was so much — it made me appreciate his intelligent mind.”
He left that meal with a few major takeaways that still reverberate in his mind.
“Just always learn and grow, always be a sponge and be curious,” Durant said. “Off the court, on the court, just be curious. Always grow, always want to grow as a man, as a basketball player.”
