The rivalry between Mamba and King never materialized
Sunday night, Kobe Bryant made the official announcement of the elephant in the room, pertaining to his imminent retirement in April. Much like Kevin Durant, LeBron is taking The Black Mamba’s retirement to heart, since it was one of the players he and his peers all patterned their game after.
While Kobe hasn’t cared about his perception in the past from players around the league, we’re sure he’s appreciating the overwhelming support from players on every team in his farewell trip.
As mentioned earlier, King James has always enjoyed playing against Kobe on the court and has some regret for not keeping his end of the bargain when Los Angeles made it to the 2009 NBA Finals against the Orland Magic. Take a look at LeBron’s public eulogy for the legendary Laker.
“Obviously there was so much made about it, from commercials to media talk, to people just talking about the Lakers versus the Cavs, Kobe versus LeBron, Kobe versus LeBron, Kobe versus LeBron, but I couldn’t do that to my teammates to kind of assume. That’s not my job. I’ve seen the stat that since ’07 either he has or I’ve been in the Finals but we’ve never matched up. And that definitely sucks. Not only for us two being competitors, wanting to go against each other in the Finals, but also for the fans.”
“I mean, in high school I wore a nappy ass afro because of Kobe Bryant. Because he wore it. I wanted to be just like him, man. And I always said my inspiration came from (Michael) Jordan, but I always thought Jordan was so out of this world that I could never get there. Kobe was someone that I just always kind of wanted to be like and play like.”“It was someone that I always knew I had to be in the gym. I knew I had to be better because of Kobe Bryant. I knew he was in the gym and I knew he was working on his game. And I knew he was great. So every day that I didn’t want to work out or every day I felt like I couldn’t give more, I always thought of Kobe. Because I knew that he was getting better and I was like, ‘Man, if you take a day off, he’s going to take advantage of it. You cannot take a day off. You cannot take a day off.’ And I used him for my motivation throughout my career because I always knew that he was working on something. So, that part will be missed a little bit.”