The 2008 NBA Finals was one of the low points for the Los Angeles Lakers, and certainly franchise icon Kobe Bryant, as they fell to the Boston Celtics. But from the moment they lost that series, Bryant was determined to get back to the Finals and right that wrong.
And Bryant didn’t just expect that of himself, but from his teammates as well. One of those was wing Trevor Ariza, who played a huge role in the Lakers’ returning to, and winning the Finals in 2009. And he recently spoke about Bryant sending him a blueprint of what he needed the wing to do that offseason to help the Lakers win a championship.
“Losing is never a sweet feeling, but I don’t think I took it as hard as they did,” Ariza said on the “All The Smoke” podcast. “But after the game I know like, going to the hotel the bus was shaking. The fans were shaking the bus, throwing rocks at it and shit.
“And we get back to the hotel, everybody goes to Kobe’s room right? We just taking shots. Talking about like, how we gonna come back next year and be better. And once we got back to LA he sent me a text. He said, ‘In like a week I’m gonna send you the blueprint to how we gonna win this s—. I’m gonna send you everything that I need you to do to help me.’
“And he sent me like a text of all the s— that he wanted me to do, and times that he wanted me to come f— with him, to work out. And we worked throughout the summer. The s— that he told me to do I did that every day, twice a day and we end up winning the next year.”
The teammates that Bryant loved and trusted the most were the ones that he knew were putting in the work to be the best like he was. Ariza was one of those players and he saw that the end result to putting in that work was a championship.
After coming so close, and losing to their most hated rivals, Bryant was going to push every member of the Lakers to ensure they didn’t come up short again, and he succeeded in that journey.
Richard Hamilton opens up about friendship with Kobe Bryant
Someone else who was a long-time close friend with Bryant was one of his biggest rivals in the NBA in former Detroit Pistons guard Richard Hamilton. And the retired guard recently opened up about his relationship with the Lakers’ icon.
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