Not even something as long and hate-fueled as the Lakers-Celtics rivalry could hold back the amount of respect that Kobe Bryant’s peers have shown him during All-Star Weekend.
“He’s the greatest player of my time,” Boston’s Isaiah Thomas said. “Somebody that’s changed the game in so many ways. The game of basketball’s gonna miss him. Like I always say, I just thank him for everything he’s done. He’s impacted so many people’s lives that he doesn’t even know.”
Indeed, even Celtics have offered nothing but praise for the 20-year veteran ahead of his final All-Star Game on Sunday.
With such an iconic member of the NBA’s history winding down his career, players like Thomas and Miami’s Dwyane Wade — a future Hall of Famer in his own right — reflected on the influence he’s had on their own careers while talking with Lakers.com.
“Having a relationship with one of my heroes, one of my role models as a basketball player, meant a lot,” Wade said. “To be able to pick up the phone (and) reach out to him means a lot. It means more than the words that even he can say.”
Oftentimes Bryant didn’t need any words to get his point across.
Just 19 years old a the time, Anthony Davis got an up-close look at Bryant’s well-documented work ethic with the U.S. National Team at the 2012 Olympics.
“That was really the first time I got to see him play live,” said Davis, who was the last man off the bench for the Americans. “The way he played — he didn’t care about scoring; he just wanted to win. That’s a winning mentality and championship mentality.”
That mentality was Bryant’s greatest weapon against his future Olympic teammate and then-Denver Nugget, Carmelo Anthony, during their classic duel in the 2009 Western Conference Finals.
Now with New York, Anthony poured in 27.5 points per game, but Bryant countered with 34.0 to lead the Lakers to victory in six games on their way to a title.
“It (showed) how prepared you had to be,” Anthony said. “Mentally, physically — you had to be sharp and prepared going against him. Every day it wasn’t going to be the same thing. It was a mind game. It was a mental game that you had to prepare yourself for.”
At the time of that series, San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard was just getting ready to graduate from Riverside’s King High.
Now the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Leonard admired the way Bryant — a 12-time All-Defensive selection himself — was able to approach his one-on-one assignments.
“It’s not just scoring if you’re trying to win games,” Leonard said. “He takes pride in his defense. … Just every game watching him be the guard that’s the best defender in crunch time.”
Aside from the results on the floor, Bryant’s impact can be measured by the way he established himself as a one-of-a-kind player whose dominance was matched by his uniqueness.
Whether it was the replay-demanding dunks or the last-minute fadeaways, there was something about Bryant’s game that simply made him stand out, much like Allen Iverson or Michael Jordan.
“Everybody wanted to be like A.I., Kobe, Mike — one of those guys,” Washington’s John Wall said. “He’s the Michael Jordan of our era, in my opinion. All the young players that lived in L.A. watched him and enjoyed him.”
Though he grew up in Los Angeles himself, Houston Rockets star James Harden believes that Bryant’s influence on the hoops community extends far beyond the Southland.
“Not just the culture of L.A., but the culture around the world,” Harden said. “Twenty years in, five championship, (an) MVP — he’s done it all. We’ve seen that for 20 years. It’s gonna be hard to kind of see him go, but it had to be at some point.”