Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan are a rare breed of NBA talent, but not just due to their on-court abilities. The aspect of their game that separates them from the rest is their mindset. They didn’t view the sport as simple competition but on a scale closer to war. For some players like Grant Hill, the approach to the game wasn’t quite like that.
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It’s impossible to reach a level as high as the NBA without being a competitor. Pure talent can only lead a player so far in their athletic endeavor. The discussion begins when it comes to the degree of competition a specific athlete embraces.
Despite playing for the Duke Blue Devils during the early 1990s, Hill was one of the nicest players to step on a basketball court. The public hated his college team, but could recognize Hill’s genuineness. However, if people overlooked Hill due to his nice nature, he ensured he made them pay.
“You don’t get to that level of All-Star and All-NBA if you don’t have a competitive streak,” Hill said on The Dan Patrick Show. “I think people sometimes mistake kindness for weakness.”
Hill didn’t have to consume himself with hatred to showcase a killer attitude. “It allowed me to go at guys and not be nasty. Be a competitor and have sportsmanship,” Hill said. Sportsmanship is exactly what he possessed throughout his 18-year career. As a result, he won the NBA’s Sportsmanship award three times.
That doesn’t mean he believes Jordan and Bryant’s approach to the game was necessarily bad. The main thing is being authentic. For Hill, being authentic meant carrying himself with a certain level of sportsmanship. Authenticity for Bryant and Jordan came in a different form.
“Those guys were assassins,” Hill proclaimed. The seven-time All-Star experienced Bryant’s intensity firsthand during a Team USA practice in 2012.
“I was talking to Kobe before practice, and the intensity in his face, talking about, ‘I’m going to go out here and kill.’ This was the second day of practice, but that was him,” Hill said.
On the other hand, Jordan would look for things to get him going, even if it came from an unexpected place. “Michael would manufacture things,” Hill revealed. Even if nobody trash-talked him, he would devise a scenario in his head to fuel his competitive fire.
The approach to the game between these three athletes was different in their own way. Nonetheless, they didn’t allow anyone to push them away from being who they are. That level of authenticity is why all three are all-time NBA legends.
