Last season was the year Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leaped into true superstar territory. He won both the regular season and NBA Finals MVP awards in leading the Thunder to their first NBA Championship and, along the way, drew a lot of comparisons to his favorite player growing up, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.
Gilgeous-Alexander has spoken about how watching Kobe as a kid inspired him to keep pushing for his dreams and last season a lot of those things came true. In particular, winning that MVP award was something he dreamed about after watching Bryant receive MVP chants during his legendary career.
But now that he has accomplished these things, the work doesn’t stop, just as Kobe would love. In an interview with Yang Yi-Goh of GQ Sports, Gilgeous-Alexander made it clear that he continues to work hard in order to be the absolute best and hopes to one day be better than the Lakers icon:
“I pick up a basketball to be the best. If you’re asking me if I want to be better than Kobe, of course I do,” Shai says. “Whether I get there or not, we’ll find out.”
As the Thunder guard noted, we will see if he can ultimately reach that level, but Gilgeous-Alexander is certainly on the path to getting in the conversation with some of the game’s all-time greats. There are certainly some similarities in their games, particularly with how they both dominate in the mid-range and their ability to come up in the clutch moments when their team needs them the most.
If Gilgeous-Alexander wants to be better than Bryant then the most important thing he can do is to continue winning at a high level. Nothing was more important than winning to the Lakers legend and his five NBA Championships is a testament to his desire to win at all costs.
With the way the Thunder are set up, Gilgeous-Alexander could very well be capable of leading his team to multiple more championships and as long as he maintains his ridiculous level of play along the way, he could eventually find himself amongst Kobe and the rest of the all-time greats. But he still has a long ways to go to get there.
Mookie Betts channels Lakers legend Kobe Bryant as Dodgers near World Series berth
Many still use Lakers icon Kobe Bryant as an inspiration to continue pushing them to greatness and that is certainly the case with Los Angeles Dodgers star shortstop Mookie Betts, who recently channeled Kobe as the Dodgers near a second consecutive World Series championship.
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