Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant, arguably the best player of his generation, announced on Sunday he will retire after the 2015-16 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. And I didn’t know that was there until it came time to actually make ‘The Muse, ‘ and I was like, wow, this is actually pretty fun. “I am very solid with this decision”, he said.
Advertisement
“When he called me this afternoon and told me and it became a reality, it hurt”, Buss said Sunday.
“But I can’t love you obsessively for much longer”.
The following season, Bryant and the Lakers finished off the 76ers in five games, with Bryant wearing The Kobe for a second straight finals appearance. When it comes to having a position on the Olympic team, U.S. basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo says that Bryant “remains in contention”.
“There is no sadness in this”, he said.
Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Bryant’s unfortunate decline has been evident as the Lakers continue to struggle. I see the beauty in not being able to blow past defenders anymore.
Bryant averaged 23.5 points per game in that series.
Following the Blazers win over the Lakers on Saturday in Portland, CJ McCollum and Bryant had a brief exchange on the court, where Blazers’ third-year guard told the Lakers’ 20-year veteran that he admired and appreciated Bryant’s contributions to the game.
Bryant announced on The Players’ Tribune Web site that this will be his last season as a pro. “I’m not from California, I’m not from Philly, but I’ve always enjoyed watching him play”. In his retirement poem, Kobe mentions being a kid shooting a wad of paper into the wastebasket, counting down the final ticks of an imaginary game before the heave. “I feel excited about what is to come”.
Advertisement
He said that he left “no stone unturned” in the pursuit of basketball excellence. “My mind can handle the grind (b)ut my body knows it’s time to say goodbye”. It’s a bummer mostly because you only want to remember the greatness-you don’t want to associate “I freaking Suck” Kobe with Dropped-81-on-the-Raptors Kobe-but it’s also a reminder that a player’s time on top is finite. He is a ruthless competitor and that rankles some, and he is seen as a shot-happy ball-dominator and current team killer who doesn’t know enough to get out of the way and let the abysmal Lakers get on with a rebuilding process.
