NBA Legends Share The CRAZIEST Kobe Bryant Story From The 2008 Redeem Team
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00:00The Redeem Team documentary set to release on October 7th on Netflix sparked this video
00:10creation.
00:11So I went back and looked at each Redeem Team member, and all these NBA legends had a story
00:16to tell on Kobe Bryant, and they all fit in.
00:19So here's the craziest Kobe Bryant Olympic story that you've ever heard.
00:24If you enjoy these types of videos, please help me out by hitting that like button, subscribe
00:27if you are new, get your popcorn, sit back and relax, and welcome to the craziest 2008
00:35Dream Team Kobe Bryant story.
01:05I had a lot of concerns, that's why we recruited Kobe Bryant.
01:09A lot of it really falls on me because I'm wiser of the guys that have been around for
01:16so many years, so most of the time I set the tone in practice.
01:21I'd like to share a lesson I learned from him.
01:23It was 2008, the Redeem Team was formed, and we were in Vegas for the start of training
01:30camp, and we were getting ready for the Olympics in Beijing, we're going to head to Beijing.
01:35And this is when I knew Kobe was a monster though.
01:38You hear about it, you hear about it, but if you don't see it, you really, really don't know.
01:41So 2008 Olympics was right after he and the Lakers got beat by the Celtics.
01:47We were in the player lounge, playing cards.
01:50There was four of us playing spades, and he came in, and there was a little wine, he sat
01:55down and poured himself a glass.
01:57And he saw this newspaper, and he saw a picture, it was something about the Lakers series,
02:03and it was a picture of Paul Pierce celebrating.
02:06And there was a picture of Paul Pierce.
02:08So they had just lost to the Celtics in the finals, tragically.
02:13And in a very gut-wrenching way.
02:16If you remember, they blew a lead, it was not good.
02:19Kobe Bryant sits down and pours a glass of wine, we're like, what the fuck?
02:23And he got very competitive with drinking the wine, and it was like, he didn't want to be
02:29behind anybody on these glasses.
02:32And we were like, Kobe, you know, we got practice tomorrow, we're just sipping.
02:35And I just remember watching Kobe just stir the pot the whole time.
02:38You know how Kobe does.
02:40Nope.
02:41He was like, into this wine, I've had three glasses, you've only had one.
02:45And I was like, that's because I'm small.
02:47And he literally like, he didn't say a word, he didn't say anything, but we saw him like,
02:51take the paper, he started cutting out the Paul Pierce picture, you know, ripped out
02:55this picture.
02:56He like, folded it up and he put it in his pocket, and he was like, it's motivation for
03:00next year.
03:02And we were like, okay, okay.
03:05And then he proceeded to like, chug his wine, pour another glass, chug it, pour the third,
03:11and he was like, basically like, he looks over and he's like, now I'm one ahead of you
03:16guys.
03:17We were like, okay.
03:18And again, it was just this glimpse into like, how he worked, how he functioned.
03:24I was like, oh, that's what, like, that's who he is.
03:27Like, that's what this is.
03:28Like, this is who Kobe Bryant is.
03:30You know, it was funny.
03:32We were in the Olympics, right?
03:33Yeah, when we were starting to build a culture at USA Basketball, he, Chauncey Billups and
03:42Jason Kidd were added to add veteran leadership.
03:46Coach K did a great job of preparing us, you know, of getting us ready.
03:52Coach K, I really want to say Coach K led the charge on that one because he knew the
03:57moment and how serious it was.
03:59You know, but at the same time, we had the group of guys we had, and you didn't have
04:03to really worry about that, you know, with LeBron, Kobe, D-Wade.
04:07Carmel Lohan, you know, those, those guys were great guys.
04:11Me and Cole became, we became very close.
04:14The one that I'm closest to from the team, I look at him as a brother.
04:20Bruh, he pulled me to the side in the Olympics and said, you're a bad motherfucker.
04:26Like that.
04:27You know what I'm saying?
04:28Because he knew what it was already.
04:30So for me as a young player, four or five, you're four years in the league at that time,
04:34it's nothing, you want nothing more than somebody like that to come to the plate, a real bad
04:38motherfucker.
04:39You know what I'm saying?
04:40That was respect.
04:41So when he did that, I knew it took a lot out of him to tell me some shit like that.
04:46So I took that and then, you know, I built on that.
04:49And I thought the world of him prior to my experience with him and playing with him even
04:55more so.
04:56You know, he just works extremely hard, competes.
04:59But we became close on some like, some disrespectful shit like, he's going at your neck, he's saying
05:05shit to you, elbowing you.
05:06I had my braids back then too, so he touching my hair, I'm like, y'all don't touch my hair,
05:13you know what I'm saying?
05:14Don't touch me no more, dawg.
05:15The last summer, he was the butt of a lot of jokes.
05:18And he, you know, he's smirking and, you know, he's doing his little shit elbows.
05:23He come back elbowing me, I come back elbowing him.
05:26He's going to be physical with you, he's going to try to wear you down.
05:29He laughing, talking about that's all you got, you know what I'm saying?
05:31It was just...
05:32Pushing your butt.
05:33Pushing my butt in his seat.
05:34Where I was going to stand at.
05:36I was just listening.
05:37I was just trying to soak everything up I could, you know, and I remember one thing
05:41that he said, he was like, if you want to try to be, you know, great at it, or want
05:45to be one of the greats, you got to put the work in, you know, there's no substitution
05:49to work.
05:50So we get into a city, one of the cities very late, and immediately we all go to the
05:55gym, you know, all my guys is, you know, it's Melo, it's me, it's Brian, it's Kobe, like
06:00we all go to the gym, we all get out working, it's real late.
06:03And so after we get done getting out working, me and my guys, we said, hey, like, let's
06:07meet for breakfast in the morning.
06:08And I wanted to establish myself as a young leader on the team by waking up bright and
06:12early.
06:13Like, if you can't sleep, whoever first one wake up, hit us up, we're going to go eat.
06:16Day one.
06:18So the goal was to be the first one at breakfast.
06:22And so we probably get like three hours of sleep, you can't sleep much when you're traveling
06:25across the world, you know, like we were traveling.
06:28So I set my alarm, I make sure I'm about sunrise, I get out of bed, I put on my gear and I head
06:34downstairs.
06:35And we get probably like three hours of sleep and we wake up, we go down to where the food
06:39is.
06:40As we walk it down, you know, slumming with sleep in our eyes, Kobe Bryant is sitting
06:44there.
06:45Kobe's already there with ice packs on his knees, drenched in sweat, right?
06:52So we walk up to Kobe, like, oh, what's up?
06:56He was like, oh, yeah, man, I just finished, finished a workout and I'm about to go do
07:00another one.
07:01Now, it took me a minute to figure it out, but this guy wasn't only awake before me,
07:07he had already worked out at that moment.
07:10I was like, wait, hold on.
07:12We just worked out about three hours ago.
07:14You know what I mean?
07:15And like, you've done another workout and you're about to go do another one.
07:17He was up every morning at seven o'clock in the morning, getting a lift in, going to the
07:21gym, getting up shots, going to get breakfast, coming back for practice by himself every
07:26day and then coming back at night to get shots up.
07:30He had just played in the finals days earlier.
07:33Meanwhile, I'd been off for months and I was still exhausted.
07:39What he had done that morning was incomprehensible to me.
07:42That dedication he had only days after falling short of an NBA championship, that taught
07:49me something I've never forgotten.
07:52Legends aren't defined by their successes, they're defined by how they bounce back from
07:57their failures.
07:58That's when I was like, OK, I got to get my stuff together, I got to get my shit together
08:01because this dude right here is on a whole different level than even I'm on and I'm supposed
08:07to be great.
08:08Right.
08:09So that's the kind of person he was.
08:10And that's how he drove me.
08:11You know what I mean?
08:12It's little stuff like that.
08:13I went back and said, OK, that means I got to work hard and I got to do more.
08:17At the first week of training camp for the Olympics in 08, he was doing it by himself.
08:21By the second week, we had the whole team there.
08:23Yeah, I mean, it's contagious.
08:25And that was our regimen from the second week of training camp to get ready for the Olympics
08:29all the way until we got the gold medal and we beat Spain and China.
08:32That was the standard he wanted to lead.
08:34He wanted to make sure that we all achieved greatness.
08:36We put the work into it.
08:39When you see, you know, at the time, he was probably, you know, him and LeBron are the
08:45best players in the world.
08:46You know, arguably, you know, it's kind of one of those battles that went back and forth
08:49at the time.
08:51So it was two different things that you had to worry about.
08:53With LeBron, it was pick and roll after pick and roll after pick and roll.
08:56With Kobe, it was a matter of don't let him get to his sweet spots.
09:00He's going to beat you up for three quarters.
09:02And so in the fourth quarter, it'll be easier to get to his sweet spots.
09:05So you needed crazy stamina.
09:07You see this man, the work he's putting in, the hours he's putting in the gym, the extra
09:11shots he's getting up.
09:12You can't help him.
09:13You're not going to go sit down on the sideline while he's still out here at 30, you know,
09:18see him doing that.
09:19And I'm, you know, I'm 20, 23 years old, you know, I got to get up there too, you know.
09:25And so it was great.
09:26It was great being able to work out with him, to learn from him, to talk to him, pick his
09:30brain about things and then have a chance to compete with him.
09:34You're going to see how hard he worked, how much he put into the game, how good he, how
09:38good he really is or was.
09:41And so to be able to play with a guy who had everything offensively, who could have just
09:46demanded us to give him the ball every time down, was worried about defense in the Olympics.
09:52Come on, bro.
09:53What am I going to do?
09:54I'm going to follow suit and lead it.
09:56And so that was one of my favorite things when he came to me and he said that, like,
09:59I didn't care about starting them.
10:00All I care about is my moments when I got a chance to get on that court with Kobe because
10:02I knew what it was going to go down.
10:04I'm sure he knew that, man, you know, I know this is tough for D-Wade not to be starting
10:08on this team.
10:09And Kobe came to me as he knew I was coming off the bench.
10:12He came to me right away and he eased my mind.
10:14He was like, listen.
10:15And he said, hey D, when you get in, when you get in the game and it's me and you on
10:18the floor, this is what I'm going to do.
10:19I'm going to pick up the defender, 94 feet.
10:22I'm going to harass him.
10:23I'm going to turn him.
10:24I'm going to turn him.
10:25I'm going to turn him.
10:26And once I turn him, you do what you do.
10:27You come and like shoot at him, you know what I mean?
10:29Like to come and trap or to come and get a steal, you know?
10:33And so I got so many steals and so many dunks and so much because of an unselfishness of
10:37a star in our league.
10:38For me, I looked at that.
10:39I'm like, I'm a younger guy.
10:40I'm the least, you know, accomplished guy in this group.
10:43I should be the one that you say, he should have told me, D, you go pressure and I'm going
10:47to do that.
10:48But his mindset wasn't that way.
10:50Grover, his trainer was talking about how he would just go on bike rides through the
10:54desert and just like really just work, like just do wild stuff just to get like his mentally
11:00repaired.
11:01When Kobe was in the Olympics in 2008.
11:06You took the role in 08 as a defensive stopper.
11:09And then if they need you towards the end, you would go out and close, especially in
11:1108 against Spain.
11:14Kobe right away said, I'll play defense.
11:17And in first practice, he never took a shot.
11:23All Kobe cared about was defense.
11:25All of a sudden, there's a knock on the door.
11:29It's two days early and it's Kobe.
11:32He said, coach, can I talk to you for a minute?
11:36And I said, certainly.
11:37So we went to a private room and I said, what do you need?
11:41He said, I need to ask you a favor.
11:44And I said, yeah, what is it?
11:47He said, I want to guard the best perimeter player on every team that we play.
11:53Now he's the NBA scoring champ.
11:55He's the best player in the league at that time.
11:57He wanted to let everyone know that I'm here and I want to guard the best offensive player
12:04every time.
12:11We go and we have a team meeting and the first practice, he doesn't take a shot.
12:15He does not take one shot.
12:20Excessively, Coach K was the coach and he pulled Kobe and myself over and he said.
12:24So I call him over afterwards and I said, you know, yo, Kobe, you're actually going
12:29to have open shots.
12:32Will you shoot the fricking ball?
12:35And Kobe said, I've been playing this game for I don't know how many years.
12:38I've never had an open shot.
12:39He goes, no, because with the talent that we have and the offense we're going to run,
12:43you're going to have open shots.
12:44So Kobe goes, well, where are my open shots going to be from?
12:48He said, mostly the corners.
12:50That's something that I really took the challenge of because very rarely did he take shots from
12:55the corner.
12:56And he smiled, you know, he had that smile and he said from then on, I was the only coach
13:01ever to ask him to shoot.
13:06And you know what he was doing, JJ?
13:09He had this vision of moments.
13:12He knew that for us to win the gold medal, we would have to beat Argentina, whether it
13:16be in a semis or the gold medal game, and that he wanted to guard Chernobyl.
13:23Believe me, he already had that figured out and he was going to prepare to guard Chernobyl.
13:29It wasn't just to set an example for his team.
13:33He had that vision, crazy.
13:36So every single day from the moment the coach told him that we would make 500, not miss,
13:45not take, we would make 500 jump shots from the corners.
13:52That's it.
13:53Let's not just make the shot because there's a lot of individuals that can make the shot.
13:58Let's enhance the focus.
13:59This is how the ball has to go in the hoop.
14:01This is how it has to come back to you.
14:04So those 500 shots weren't all the same every single time.
14:09That's mindset.
14:10The fans, the defending world champions, were both undefeated and this is a game everybody
14:20was waiting to see.
14:21And from your relationship with Paolo, your boss and your relationship?
14:25We're like brothers.
14:26I mean, we're very, very close and you know, I'm very happy for him that he's playing well.
14:31And we're very, very tight, so it's a little tough to compete against him.
14:39Right before the game, Kobe came to see me when they came to visit the village.
14:43I remember that very clearly and vividly.
14:46My big brother came to see me with my teammates, which everyone was like, whoa, Kobe's in our
14:52apartment.
14:53How cool.
14:54And I believe, you know, that might have been part of his strategy to kind of soften me
14:59up.
15:00Now it's time for the United States to battle for what many feel is their toughest foe in
15:05these Olympic games.
15:06In Spain, both teams come in 3-0.
15:07They're the two best teams.
15:08They're the two gold medal hopefuls.
15:09Kobe said he gonna set the tone to start the game.
15:10He said, I'm running through Paolo's fucking chest.
15:11First play of the game, I'm running through Paolo's heart.
15:12We was like, what?
15:13Man, you tripping.
15:14That's your teammate.
15:15You tripping.
15:16You ain't about to do that.
15:17He said, first play of the game, I know what they're going to run.
15:18And you knew Paolo's going to be the last screen.
15:19And he said, I'm running through it, motherfucker.
15:20I swear, the first play of the game.
15:21Oh, my God.
15:22Oh, my God.
15:23Oh, my God.
15:24Oh, my God.
15:25Oh, my God.
15:26He just went right to the middle of my chest, tried to get right through me to send a message
15:53Not just to me, but to his teammates.
15:54And say, hey, this might be my brother.
15:55Play with him.
15:56Close.
15:57But I don't care about anything else but winning.
15:58I'm right there in front of him.
15:59It's like, bow.
16:00Ooh.
16:01Yo.
16:02He was like, no, he ain't my teammate right now.
16:03Fucking get up.
16:04I'm like, I love this energy.
16:05This is what we need.
16:06He did that to his teammate.
16:07Oh, my God.
16:08Oh, my God.
16:09Oh, my God.
16:10Oh, my God.
16:11Oh, my God.
16:12Oh, my God.
16:13Oh, my God.
16:14Oh, my God.
16:15Oh, my God.
16:16Oh, my God.
16:17Oh, my God.
16:18Oh, my God.
16:19Oh, my God.
16:21Like, he did that to his teammate.
16:22Oh, my God.
16:23It's like, it ain't no way.
16:24Ain't no way we're losing this game.
16:25We're about to beat the shouters, man.
16:26And so they look for me to really have that poise in those type of situations, just not
16:29get rattled, not get flushed around.
16:30It is what it is.
16:31And so just to kind of keep that composure was part of my job.
16:32Yeah.
16:33What's up?
16:34What's up?
16:35What's up?
16:36What's up?
16:37What's up?
16:38What's up?
16:39What's up?
16:40What's up?
16:41What's up?
16:42What's up?
16:43What's up?
16:44What's up?
16:45What's up?
16:46What's up?
16:47What's up?
16:48When he cut it to two points, three minutes to go, I was like, man, this is so much fun.
16:56You know, I remember wanting the ball in those situations.
16:59And once I made the shot, it just felt good.
17:02I was like, oh, yeah, this is—all right, I want to do it again.
17:12It's a different feeling playing for your country.
17:15When you're playing in the NBA, you're playing for a particular city, a particular market.
17:21When you're playing for your country, those lines go away.
17:25We're all together. We're all playing for the USA basketball team.
17:34It carries a great honor with it that goes above and beyond winning the NBA championship.
17:45They're Mormons, really special.