Getty Kobe Bryant #24 of the Los Angeles Lakers laughs as he holds two NBA Finals Larry O'Brien Championship Trophys.
Kobe Bryant won five NBA Championships as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Bryant won his first set of NBA Finals rings alongside Shaquille O’Neal in 1999, 2002 and 2003.
The Black Mamba later led the Lakers to a second set of rings in 2009 and 2010 alongside center, Pau Gasol who was traded from the Memphis Grizzlies to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Appearing on a recent episode of the Scoop B Radio Podcast, I checked in with current Sacramento Kings scout, Adam Filippi who tells me that Bryant pushed his Lakers teammates in practice. This was particularly true of not just Gasol, but of Trevor Ariza and Sasha Vujacic, as well.
Check out a snippet from our Q&A below:
Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson: You and I talked about [Kobe] in practice. You talked about what he was like. Clue me in on what watching Kobe was like in practice.
Adam Filippi: I’ll be honest. I was talking to another scout who’s still with the Lakers [Irving Thomas] earlier today and for us, we had a great group number one. Our staff was terrific. But the true honor for us in those years was the Lakers were winning. It was a hell of a team was going to training camp. First off we would do training camp in Hawaii every other year but even when we were at the facility, Kobe was the main attraction. I mean we would’ve paid a ticket to attend training camp. We were part of the staff but watching him in practice, I think everybody saw the games, everybody saw the highlights, but in order to be THAT efficient, you know in front of 20,000 people in real games his workshop was practice. Not only team practice but also individual practice. I will tell you a story after this about his individual routines and how…but during regular practice, he just wanted to challenge himself, wanted to challenge his teammates, wanted to challenge the coaches, everybody to be on top of their game. I don’t know if it was just his way to test people to see who you could count on, I don’t know if it was that, he would ride some guys and if they broke he knew that they weren’t good enough. And those guys that were tough enough to handle it because he was hard on ‘em. I can give you 3 examples. Sasha Vujačić played ten years in the league, young kid from Europe. Kobe took a likening to him because he spoke Italian but he was hard on him more than anybody else. Then it was Jordan Farmar. And then we made a trade and got Trevor Ariza. All 3 of those players don’t become the players they became if Kobe doesn’t challenge them and kind of push them and set the tone for those guys. Other guys that I’m not going to mention they couldn’t handle it and he gave up on those guys right away. Pau Gasol came to the Lakers with the reputation of being a little “soft” and his transformation with Kobe pushing him changes his career and is eventually one of the best big men in the league. If he doesn’t come to the Lakers pau would just be remembered as a good European player but not the superstar he became.