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Kobe Bryant remains one of the most studied figures in basketball history, not only because of his championships and records, but also because of the intensity that defined his career.
When people ask what Kobe Bryant was really like, the most revealing answers often come from the players who shared the locker room with him.
Teammates saw the competitive fire, the discipline, the demands, and the leadership style that shaped the Los Angeles Lakers across two decades.
When people ask what Kobe Bryant was really like, the most revealing answers often come from the players who shared the locker room with him.
Teammates saw the competitive fire, the discipline, the demands, and the leadership style that shaped the Los Angeles Lakers across two decades.
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00:00Kobe Bryant spent 19 seasons with the Lakers, sharing a locker room with dozens of teammates.
00:05Ask them what he was really like, and you'll hear completely different stories.
00:10Shaquille O'Neal called him the meanest teammate he ever had.
00:13Lamar Odom called him a brother.
00:15Pau Gasol said Kobe wanted to find out what you were made of.
00:18So what was Kobe Bryant really like? Let's break it down.
00:22Start with the one story every NBA fan already half knows.
00:26The practice where Shaquille O'Neal hit Kobe Bryant in the face.
00:30Things between the pair came to a head when they got into an altercation one day at practice.
00:35And according to veteran player Olden Polinus, the fight started with Bryant confronting O'Neal.
00:40And O'Neal subsequently hitting Bryant across the face.
00:44Polinus, who was in that room, didn't sugarcoat what he saw.
00:47He told ESPN, they were just two alpha males who couldn't coexist.
00:51Shaq's mindset was, this is my team, two guys who both believed the team belonged to them.
00:56That's the collision course right there.
00:59It wasn't just one blow up.
01:00This was a pattern season after season.
01:03O'Neal frequently called Bryant out.
01:05Often attacking him and accusing him of playing selfishly on the basketball court.
01:10And Bryant wasn't the type to just take it quietly.
01:13He fired back publicly.
01:15Calling the accusation ridiculous.
01:17Insisting he'd been sacrificing his game for Shaq for years.
01:20Here's the thing though, Shaq himself, years later, laid out exactly what he was doing.
01:25And it wasn't really about hate, it was strategy.
01:28He explained it point blank.
01:30Kobe was the guy you could talk smack to, and he wouldn't pout.
01:33He would try to shut you up.
01:34Shaq used to go in and tell him he wasn't that good.
01:37Just to piss him off so bad that Kobe would try to outdo him.
01:41Because if Kobe's averaging 30 and Shaq's averaging 30, that's 60 points right there.
01:46And they were guaranteed to win.
01:47Shaq flat out called him the meanest teammate he ever played with.
01:51Kobe was the meanest, Shaq said.
01:53We came in at the same time.
01:55He just wanted to be great at 17, 18 years old.
01:59He was the guy that you would talk smack to him.
02:01He wouldn't pout.
02:02He would try to shut you up.
02:04This wasn't some throwaway insult.
02:06Shaq meant it as the highest compliment he could give a teammate.
02:10And it started early, before either of them had won anything.
02:13During Kobe's rookie season, the Lakers had a couple of rookies they hazed
02:17pretty badly.
02:18Dogging them out constantly, making them carry bags, get food.
02:22It was a rite of passage, a lot of teams did.
02:25But according to Shaq, they went a little too far with it.
02:28One of the rookies Derek Fisher just took it.
02:30The other rookie, Kobe Bryant, ratted them out.
02:33To Jerry West, the Lakers general manager at the time.
02:37Even as a teenager, fresh in the leg, Kobe wasn't playing by the unwritten rules everyone
02:41else followed.
02:43Shaq also pointed out that once Kobe got comfortable, he started taking over.
02:47And it cost his teammates their rhythm.
02:49Kobe was starting to get comfortable in the leg, Shaq said.
02:53He started doing too much and taking everyone else out of their rhythm.
02:57I told him, hey, you've got to play team ball.
02:59And he always had an answer back.
03:01That's a teammate's eye view of a kid who refused to defer to anybody.
03:05Including a guy who'd already won a title before Kobe arrived.
03:09Behind the noise, there was real strategy in how the two coexisted, even during the worst
03:14of it.
03:15According to O'Neal, the coaching staff learned to just let the two of them go at each other.
03:19He said flatly that Phil Jackson never once stepped in when they clashed.
03:24Because Jackson's only ask was that whatever happened off the court, they played as one
03:28on it.
03:29That's what they did.
03:30There was also a stranger layer to the rivalry.
03:32One that involved other teammates getting pulled into it.
03:36Isaiah Ryder, who joined the Lakers, said Shaq offered him
03:39actual cash to instigate Kobe.
03:41O'Neal apparently offered Ryder $10,000 to provoke Bryant, telling him three days into
03:47practice.
03:47If you and Kobe get into it, it's 10 G's in the locker.
03:51That's how deep the tension ran.
03:53Teammates were being recruited as pawns in it.
03:56Eventually the friction between the two stars did what a lot of people predicted.
04:00Before the 2003-2004 season, Bryant criticized O'Neal's physical conditioning and contract
04:07demands in an ESPN interview, questioning his leadership.
04:11And these mounting conflicts ultimately led to O'Neal's request to leave the Lakers.
04:15He got his wish.
04:17Shaq was traded to Miami after that season.
04:19And the partnership that won three straight championships came to an end.
04:23For years after the trade, this was framed as full-blown hatred.
04:27And by most teammates' accounts, that's not an exaggeration of the moment.
04:32One report on the era put it simply.
04:34The two truly hated each other by the end of their Lakers pairing.
04:37With rap beefs and public jabs, keeping the wound open.
04:41Long after Shaq had already left for South Beach.
04:43But here's what teammates who watched it unfold.
04:46From the inside kept saying, years later, once the dust settled.
04:50This was never as simple as two guys who couldn't stand each other.
04:54It was always more complicated than that, and the guys who lived through it.
04:58In that locker room are the ones best positioned to explain why.
05:02If you only listened to the noise from 2004, you'd think Shaq and Kobe never had a kind word
05:08for each other.
05:08But that's not what his teammates, starting with Shaq himself, say when you actually ask
05:13them today.
05:14Years later on his own podcast, Shaq walked the whole thing back.
05:18He said flat out that he and Bryant never really had what people call a feud.
05:22At least not one he'd label that way.
05:24Shaq Will O'Neal clarified that he and former Lowe's Angels Lakers.
05:28Teammate Kobe Bryant never had a feud.
05:31At least he wouldn't call it that.
05:32That's a stunning reframe from the guy who spent a decade trading public shots with him.
05:37He went further, describing what the whole thing actually was underneath the trash talk.
05:42It was motivation, dressed up as beef.
05:45Shaq said people always ask if he'd have a better relationship.
05:48With Kobe if he could do it all again, and his answer is nothing.
05:51Because he knew he drove him crazy, and that's what a leader does.
05:55He compared it to a football team, with players who are really good, but could be a whole lot
06:00better, so you push their buttons.
06:02He described the exact mechanics of how he did it.
06:06He'd tell Kobe he wasn't great, that it was his team, and Kobe needed to follow suit.
06:10And it used to drive Kobe crazy.
06:12He'd tell him he knew he had to average 20 or 30.
06:15So what was Kobe going to do about it, and Kobe was always trying to outdo him.
06:19That's not a guy describing an enemy, that's a guy describing a training method.
06:24And when Shaq talks about the actual bond, not the public feud, the real relationship,
06:29it sounds completely different.
06:31He called Kobe his best friend.
06:33In the same breath as calling him a little brother.
06:36We were able to push each other.
06:37Big brother, little brother.
06:39My best friend, O'Neal said.
06:41Adding that pushing each other to the maximum commitment was what got them three championships.
06:46Out of four finals trips, so he wouldn't have done anything differently.
06:50Then came the part that reframes everything about how Shaq actually felt.
06:54Once he lost the chance to say any of it in person.
06:57When Kobe died, Shaq admitted the regret ran deeper than any of the public back-end forth
07:02ever let on.
07:04He told People magazine he used to think they had time.
07:07That they'd both get old.
07:08That they'd both show up to the 50-year Lakers anniversary together.
07:12I thought, we're both going to get old.
07:15We'll both be at the 50-year Lakers anniversary.
07:17O'Neal said, other things shouldn't have been more important than getting in touch.
07:22But little things got in the way.
07:23He didn't hide how much that haunted him afterward.
07:26You put off getting in touch, O'Neal said.
07:29I'll never get to see Kobe again.
07:31In real life forever.
07:32And I just should have called.
07:34He should have called.
07:35We both should have called.
07:36But he's working.
07:37I'm working.
07:38So it's I'll see you when I see you.
07:40It's worth sitting with what O'Neal did.
07:42Right after that loss, according to his own account, he decided he was done letting grudges
07:47linger.
07:48With anyone in his life going forward, O'Neal decided to implement a major life chain.
07:53Just after Bryant's death, saying he wanted to delete my beef and confrontation clause.
07:58And no longer have any lingering conflicts in his life.
08:01Because, you never know.
08:02That's Shaq's own teammate testimony on who Kobe was to him.
08:06Not a rival he tolerated, but a brother he ran out of time with.
08:10And it wasn't only Shaq softening with hindsight.
08:13Kobe himself, years before he died, told reporters the whole thing had changed.
08:18Shaq and I have a really, really good relationship now.
08:21Bryant said, I think we appreciate each other more now than ever.
08:25I think the further you get away from the history that you had together,
08:29the more you put perspective on it, on how dominant we were.
08:32Two guys who spent a decade in the tabloids as enemies.
08:35Ending up right back where they started, as brothers who'd won together.
08:40That's one relationship, but Shaq wasn't the only teammate with a complicated story to tell.
08:45The next chapter of who Kobe really was comes from the guys.
08:49Who had to prove themselves to him, and one guy in particular.
08:52Who says it was never as bad as everyone assumed.
08:55If Shaq's story is about two alphas clashing,
08:58Pau Gasol's story is about something different.
09:01What it actually felt like to be judged by Kobe, every single day.
09:05And what happened if you passed?
09:06Gasol arrived in LA in a trade, and immediately understood the deal he'd signed up for.
09:12There was no grace, period.
09:13The Black Mamba was supremely gifted, but being his teammate was a tricky proposition.
09:18Bryant wasn't known to take a back seat to anyone once he entered his prime.
09:23And it was undoubtedly going to be an adjustment for anyone in the lake.
09:26Who shared a locker room with him, Gasol later described exactly.
09:30What that adjustment felt like from the inside, and it wasn't really about basketball skill.
09:36It was about being tested as a person.
09:38Kobe wanted to find out what you were made of.
09:40Gasol said, and if he could count on you to help him win, plain and simple.
09:44Here's the surprising part.
09:46When people ask Gasol if it was miserable.
09:49Playing next to a guy like that, he says no.
09:51But only if you understood what he was actually about.
09:55Over the years, a lot of people have wondered how difficult it must have been.
09:58To play with Kobe, Gasol said, it really wasn't.
10:02All you had to do was understand.
10:03Where he was coming from, what he was about, and how badly he wanted to win.
10:08But Gasol also admitted this wasn't a universal experience.
10:12Not everybody survived it the same way he did.
10:14Some guys genuinely struggled under that kind of daily pressure.
10:18This was uncomfortable territory for a lot of players, and many of Kobe's teammates.
10:23Over the years didn't respond well to it.
10:25The environment was too toxic for them.
10:28The expectations were unrealistic to achieve, the possibility of failure.
10:33Each and every day ate them alive, for Kobe though.
10:36That pressure wasn't cruelty for its own sake, it was a filter.
10:40Either it made you or it broke you, and there was no in-between.
10:44Gasol went even further in describing what set Kobe apart as a teammate.
10:48Comparing him against every other leader he'd ever played under.
10:52It's a line that gets repeated by basically, everyone who spent real time with Kobe.
10:57Good teammates tell you what you want to hear, but great ones tell you what you need to hear,
11:02and although complex, it can be seen as elite leadership too, since good teammates tell you
11:07what you want to hear, but great teammates tell you what you need to hear, and no one
11:12can deny that Kobe embodied that every single day.
11:15By the time Gasol had spent six years next to him, that daily grind had become something
11:20else entirely.
11:20Not torment but a kind of standard that never let up, win, or lose.
11:25That standard didn't soften with time.
11:27Even after championships and years together, Bryant never stepped back.
11:31But Gasol didn't expect him to, he understood that it was never personal.
11:36It was about keeping the edge and staying, committed to the one thing that mattered most.
11:40Gasol's final word on it, looking back from years removed, wasn't bitterness.
11:45It was something closer to gratitude.
11:47To him, Kobe didn't alienate teammates.
11:50He showed them what it meant to care deeply about the game.
11:53And to never let that standard slip, Derek Fisher tells almost the identical story.
11:58But from a different angle, the angle of a guy who came in, at the exact same time as
12:03Kobe, and initially couldn't stand him.
12:05Both men were drafted into the leg the same year.
12:08And Fisher's honest admission, is that he didn't like what he saw at first.
12:12Although they originally butted heads, and Fisher thought Bryant was selfish or self-centered
12:17at times.
12:18They developed a deep respect for each other.
12:20Both Fisher and Bryant joined the Lowe's Angels Lakers.
12:24In 1996, Fisher wrote about how that respect only came after they went through real failure
12:29together.
12:30The losses, not just the wins, were what forged it.
12:33Our bond was strengthened as we endured failure.
12:36Fisher wrote about the years they spent together.
12:39Gasol also gave Fisher his own credit as a teammate.
12:42Describing exactly what Fisher brought that made those championship runs possible.
12:47Gasol attributed their championship wins, in part to Fisher.
12:50Who did his part by being that emotional and vocal leader.
12:54With incredible work ethic, and how he was so determined.
12:57At such an incredible level at crunch time.
13:00He felt so reliable and brought that toughness.
13:03It's telling that Fisher, of all the guys who played with Kobe, across 19 years.
13:08Is the one Kobe himself, has called his all-time favorite teammate.
13:12Not every young player got the Gasol treatment, gently, though.
13:16There's a story from Robert Sacker, a center who came up during Kobe's final seasons.
13:21That shows just how cold that testing period could feel, before you'd earned anything.
13:26Sacker remembered his rookie training camp bluntly.
13:29I didn't even talk to the man.
13:30Lakers center Robert Sacker said, when asked about his first season, as Bryant's teammate.
13:36He went on to say the only two words he exchanged with Kobe.
13:40For two weeks straight were ball and outlet.
13:42That's the reality of being a nobody in Kobe's world, before you'd proven anything.
13:47Total silence until you did.
13:49That's the pattern across nearly every teammate.
13:52Who eventually earned Kobe's respect.
13:54Silence or scrutiny first, connection later.
13:56But there's a whole different category of teammate, whose story isn't about being tested at all.
14:02It's about being taken care of, sometimes in ways nobody expected from a guy known for being cold.
14:08That's where Lamar Odom comes in.
14:10Everything up to this point paints Kobe as a guy, who ran his teammates through fire.
14:14But ask Lamar Odom what Kobe actually was to him.
14:17And you get a completely different answer.
14:19Brother, not tormentor.
14:21Odom and Bryant spent years together on the Lakers, winning back-to-back titles.
14:25And Odom has never described that relationship in basketball terms.
14:30He's described it in family terms.
14:32Kobe was my teammate on the Lakers.
14:35And we were more than just teammates, we were like brothers, Odom said during a confessional interview.
14:40Odom said during a confessional interview.
14:42He explained what that meant for him personally.
14:45What having a brother like that on the same roster actually did to his own drive.
14:50When he's your teammate and becomes your brother, you feed off that, Odom said.
14:54You want to try and reach that, or at least be great at something.
14:58That bond became something more than sentiment during the hardest stretch of Odom's life.
15:02When Odom was hospitalized after a life-threatening medical emergency, it wasn't just a phone call or a tweet from
15:10Kobe.
15:10He physically left an NBA exhibition game to get to him.
15:14Kobe Bryant reportedly left the Lakers' exhibition game early, hopped in a taxi, and ran to the hospital to see
15:21him, delaying his team's return to Lowe's Angels.
15:23By two hours, not that anybody would say anything.
15:27Odom once he'd recovered, said knowing Kobe had been there.
15:31Even though he was unconscious for the visit, was part of what carried him through.
15:35When Odom was hospitalized, Kobe Bryant rushed to his side.
15:39And although Odom wasn't aware his teammate was visiting, since he was in a coma.
15:43The visit was still meaningful, to know that he was there.
15:47When I'm reflecting on it, I think that's probably what pulled me through, Odom said.
15:51The love that I was getting from everybody, that wasn't the only crisis Kobe quietly stepped into.
15:57Odom later revealed that during a period when he was struggling with a gambling addiction.
16:02It was Kobe he eventually turned to not easily, and not right away.
16:06I had been gambling, it got a little too steep for where I was at at that time, Odom said.
16:11At first, he didn't want to accept help, saying if you're in a bad situation about money.
16:16Kobe isn't the one you'd want to call, since he wouldn't just hand you a way out.
16:20Eventually pride gave way.
16:22One time I gathered up the strength, put my pride to the side and gave him a call, Odom said.
16:27That's not the version of Kobe most people picture.
16:30The guy who berated teammates in practice for being soft.
16:34That's a guy quietly picking up the phone for a friend, in real trouble.
16:38Derek Fisher's account of Odom, separately, adds another layer.
16:42To what that Lakers locker room actually felt like beneath the on-court intensity.
16:47Fisher didn't just call Odom a good player, he called him one of the best people.
16:51He'd ever known someone who deserved to be judged by his character, not his worst moments.
16:56Lamar Odom is one of the greatest people I've ever known, said Derek Fisher, Odom's longtime
17:02teammate with the Lakers.
17:04I don't view him through the prism of choices that he's made.
17:07That's the kind of loyalty that ran through that specific core of Lakers.
17:11Kobe Fisher, Odom, long after the championships ended.
17:15Fisher also carries some of the clearest testimony about who Kobe was as a person.
17:20Underneath the competitor everyone saw on television, years after Kobe's death.
17:25In an interview marking an anniversary of the crash, Fisher admitted the loss still didn't
17:29feel fully real.
17:30There are days I know it's real, and then there are days where it feels like there are
17:35pieces of him that are still here.
17:37His former Lowe's Angels Lakers teammate Derek Fisher told CNN's Alex Michelson.
17:42Fisher, who spent over a decade playing next to him, described Kobe's drive as something
17:48that was baked in from day one.
17:50Not manufactured, not performed, he had already programmed himself to want to be one of the
17:55greatest basketball players to ever touch the ball, Fisher said.
17:59He knew that about himself from day one.
18:01And Fisher pointed to a specific turning point that teammates say actually changed Kobe as a
18:06leader.
18:07Not just as a scorer, the crushing finals lost to Boston in 2008.
18:12It took losing to the Boston Celtics in 2008.
18:15To also learn how to become a better leader on a championship-caliber team, he said.
18:20Referencing how even after the first three-peat, Bryant always kept improving.
18:25So by this point, teammates give you two Kobe's that seem to contradict each other.
18:29One tests you until you break, calls you soft in front of the whole team, doesn't say a
18:34word to you for weeks, the other leaves a game early.
18:37To sit at your hospital bed, picks up the phone at 2am, calls you brother.
18:42Both of those are true, according to the people who actually lived it.
18:46And that split personality only gets more complicated once you look at how Kobe treated
18:51the players who came after Odom, Fisher, and Gasol.
18:54The last generation of teammates who watched him retire.
18:57By the end of his career, teammates describe a Kobe who had changed.
19:01Not softened exactly, but redirected.
19:04The same intensity, aimed differently.
19:06One report on his final seasons, captured it precisely.
19:10A guy who'd spent nearly two decades being the bad cop, to somebody else's good cop.
19:15Finally trying on a new role, in the twilight of his career.
19:18On a team he knew in his heart of hearts, wasn't destined for a title.
19:22He changed his ways, embracing his role as a mentor, a lighter, and a teacher.
19:26On a young Lowe's Angels Lakers team, in desperate need of all of the above.
19:31Kobe himself explained the shift, in his own words.
19:34Admitting the group in front of him, needed something different.
19:38Than the veterans he'd once battled with.
19:40My style is a little different with his group.
19:42It's a little more nurturing, Bryant said.
19:45They're so much younger, so it's a little different.
19:47The important thing with this group, is learning how to think the game all the way through.
19:52Which is different than on teams, that we have had in the past.
19:55We had a lot of veteran guys, who had been around.
19:58So my teaching style is different, but don't mistake nurturing for gentle.
20:02There was still fire in the tank, and Julius Randle got a first-hand look at it, as a rookie.
20:07During one especially heated practice, Kobe went off on the entire team.
20:12He recalled Kobe criticizing his teammates, during a practice session.
20:16For being soft as Charmin and Trash.
20:18Expressing his dissatisfaction with their performance.
20:21And claiming it was making him worse.
20:23He didn't stop at the players.
20:25He even brought the front office into it.
20:27Marching to find the general manager.
20:29And demanding to know why he was surrounded by that.
20:32Randle reflected on Kobe questioning GM Mitch Kupchak.
20:36Asking, Mitch I'm supposed to get better with this scent.
20:39Before marching to the locker room, to find Randle directly.
20:42And saying, Jew, what the FK is this Jew?
20:45I'm supposed to practice.
20:47These motherf asterisk s making me worse.
20:49That wasn't a one-off tantrum.
20:51Kobe explained elsewhere, exactly why he ran his practices that way.
20:55And it circles back to the same philosophy Gasol described years earlier.
21:00He simply couldn't tolerate teammates, who didn't demand excellence of themselves.
21:04The way he demanded it of himself, leaked footage from that same era.
21:08Caught him mid-rant, comparing an entire practice squad to toilet paper.
21:13And cursing out anyone within earshot, including his own front office.
21:17It's ugly to watch.
21:18It's also, according to the guys who were there, exactly what made the standard in that
21:23building what it was.
21:24Not every young player got yelled at though.
21:27Some got something closer to genuine care.
21:29When D'Angelo Russell came into the league as a rookie in Kobe's very last season.
21:34The two developed a relationship that reportedly outlasted Russell's time with the Lakers entirely.
21:41Lowe's Angels Lakers legend Kobe Bryant served as a mentor.
21:44To many of the young players, he was surrounded with during his final years on the club.
21:49Including Russell, whose first NBA season would be Bryant's last.
21:54People close to Russell, said the relationship kept going long after the trade to Brooklyn.
21:59And that the effect on Russell's mentality, was visible.
22:02Just being around Kobe, his presence, when you're around greatness all the time.
22:06You're going to want to be great, and it wasn't limited to guys.
22:10Who'd actually shared a locker room with him, even in retirement.
22:13Kobe told anyone, who'd listen, that his door was open to any player in the league, who wanted it.
22:19You never know who might call, Bryant told ESPNcom.
22:23I'm around for all the guys, anybody can reach out, it's an open book.
22:27He made good on that in ways, that had nothing to do with basketball.
22:31When Boston's Isaiah Thomas lost his sister, it was Kobe who reached out first, unprompted.
22:36Bryant had an opportunity, to offer guidance and nuggets of wisdom.
22:40To all-star point guard Isaiah Thomas, Kobe was the one who got in touch.
22:45With Thomas after learning about the tragic death, of the then-Boston Celtic star's sister.
22:50So here's where all of it lands, once you put every teammate's account side by side.
22:55Shaq calls him the meanest teammate he ever had, and means it as praise.
22:59Gasol says the pressure was real but never personal, and that it made him a champion.
23:04Fisher says the respect took years to build, but became unbreakable.
23:08Sacker says there was ice-gold silence, before there was ever warmth.
23:12Randall says he got cursed out, in a locker room hallway.
23:16Odom says the same man left a game, early to sit by his hospital bed,
23:20and picked up the phone at his lowest moment.
23:23None of those accounts cancel each other out.
23:25They're all describing the same person, from different distances.
23:29Some of them from the far side of a test, they hadn't passed yet.
23:32Some from the far side of one they had.
23:34What every single teammate agrees on, whether they loved him or dreaded him in the moment,
23:40is that being around Kobe Bryant changed what they thought they were capable of.
23:44That's the one thing nobody who played with him disputes.
23:48From Shaq to Gasol to Fisher to a rookie center, who didn't hear him say a real sentence.
23:53For two weeks, that's what his teammates say he was really like.
23:56For two weeks, that's what his teammates say he was really like.
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