Kobe Bryant had a magnanimous side, but he mostly didn’t show it until after he retired. On the court, he was a killer, and it didn’t matter if he was matched up against a team’s 12th man or staring face-to-face with another one of the best players of all time. Kobe was coming for your throat, every time. That was the mamba mentality.
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Basketball was more than a sport to Kobe, it was mental and physical warfare. He used to love getting into opponents heads whenever he could to give himself an edge.
Fans never did get the long-promised NBA Finals between Kobe and LeBron James, but the two did have some legendary matchups. LeBron appeared on the most recent episode of 360 With Speedy, and he shared the story of how Kobe outsmarted him for years with what amounted to a fake play call.
Kobe and LeBron got to team up as part of the 2008 Olympic squad, a group that would come to be known as the Redeem Team for the way it won the gold to avenge the 2004 loss to Argentina in the semifinals. It was there that LeBron had an epiphany, as he realized that Kobe had been fooling him for his entire career.
Speedy asked LeBron about that viral moment, and LeBron broke it down for him. “One thing about me, people know when they play me,” LeBron said.
“I know all the plays, I’m reading the scouting reports, I do a deep dive in it. So like forever I thought it was just a call he was calling, and Phil Jackson was just like, ‘Kobe!’ You know how he used to do with Mike [Jordan], triangle offense,” the Lakers star added.
LeBron mimicked the signal that Kobe used to do with his hands to demonstrate to Speedy, and then he shared what he eventually came to understand. “Man I realized that s*** was, ‘Give me the ball and everyone get the f*** out the way, I’m about to bust Bron’s a**.'”
People sometimes make fun of LeBron for having excuses or for over-explaining things, and they might here too, as he basically went on to blame the fact that he has such a high basketball IQ for Kobe being able to get over on him for so long. He has a point, though. Kobe always thought critically about the game, and he would definitely have used one of LeBron’s best attributes against him.
Regardless, fans were blessed to get the time they did with Kobe and LeBron overlapping, especially when they were on the Redeem Team together. LeBron’s hilarious recollection with Speedy only hammers that point home.
