Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant has impacted numerous athletes across all sports, and one of them is Oklahoma City Thunder guard Jared McCain.
McCain, who grew up in California and went to high school in Corona, spoke about his earliest basketball memories involving Bryant after he helped lead the Thunder to a Game 3 victory over the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals
“The earliest (memory) of watching playoff basketball, I think I wanna say 2011 when I was seven,” McCain said after the Thunder’s Game 3 win. “I remember walking into my parents room and seeing, was that Lakers? Were the Lakers in there? Probably. I remember walking in there and seeing my brother and my dad watching it and I’m kind of lost at that age, I was lost.
“But I remember watching and seeing Kobe. Kobe’s been my favorite player since I started playing basketball so I gravitated towards him and his mentality. So I think that was my earliest memory.”
McCain was surprisingly traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Thunder at the deadline, and he has fit in perfectly off the bench for the defending-champs.
While Oklahoma City already boasted incredible depth on their roster, adding McCain put them on a different level. After the Thunder fell down 15-0 on the road to the Spurs in Game 3, they went to their bench, where McCain, Alex Caruso and others completely flipped the game around.
McCain wound up playing 27 minutes in the comeback victory and finished with 24 points and four rebounds on 10-of-21 shooting off the bench. For a 22-year-old to play without fear in a hostile environment like that is pretty impressive, and will again draw comparisons to Bryant as he had similar performances early in his career to help lead the Lakers to three straight titles from 2000-02.
NBA Draft prospects likes to study Kobe Bryant
It’s cool to see that young athletes still look up to Bryant and everything he accomplished as top NBA Draft prospect Caleb Wilson recently revealed the Lakers legend is one of the players he studies regularly.
“Probably a lot of Kobe, a whole bunch of Kobe. That was my dad’s favorite player and mine too,” Wilson recently said. “Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace too, the Bad Boy Pistons. I mean, I watch a lot of Mike [Michael Jordan] too. I mean, lately I’ve been watching Giannis a lot. I feel like closer and closer I get to the NBA, my athleticism and my size translates me to his skillset. So, I watch a lot of him, but that’s pretty much it.”
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