Kobe Bryant didn't go to team practices to polish his game; he went to judge his teammates' effort. The Los Angeles Lakers played in practice like he did during NBA Finals games: mean-spirited and frisky.
This approach wore off on the other 14 guys on the roster and ultimately helped Bryant lead two championship teams as the NBA Finals MVP. But the intensity never escaped his mind, even when he was no longer at his physical apex.
Always one speed
His last finals game was in 2010, and his last postseason game was in 2012. But even in the years leading up to his retirement, Kobe, often mangled by injuries, only knew one speed, and it was full throttle.
The Lakers were far from a playoff team in the guard's final seasons. But that didn't stop No. 24 from treating practices like his team was clawing an NBA championship. Take it from Nick Young , the once dappy 3-point shooter, famous for his nonchalance, meme-worthy faces, and getting chewed out by his Hall of Fame teammate.
"He [Kobe] wouldn't practice; he would just tell us about us," said Young in a podcast appearance. "[Kobe said], like, 'Man, if I send you left, you can't go that way.' So, when he finally got out there, I was like, 'Yeah, this [is] our time cuz he [was] always just trash talking."
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Take it and move on
It got to a point where Bryant's teammates heard him prattling on about what they did wrong, and they took it as the norm. Heck, it might've been that way from the beginning.
For Young, though, it probably wasn't something he was expecting. Granted, before arriving in Los Angeles, the guard was in Philadelphia, playing for a 34-win team whose best player may have been 24-year-old Thaddeus Young.
Witnessing Bryant's callous intensity in practice, let's just say, was a new experience for Nick.
"I said, 'Damn, that's a cold line,'" he recalled of a Lakers practice . "He [Kobe] said that to me? Hold on, that's disrespectful. So, when he got out there, finally, it was fun, though. But I think [then-Lakers guard] Jeremy Lin got the worst of that."
Whatever it was, it perhaps helped "Swaggy P" mold a different mindset. The year after No. 24 retired from the NBA, Young boosted his scoring average to over 13 points per game — up from 7.3 the season before. He also netted his highest 3-point percentage (40.6 percent) since the 2009 season.
A year later, the sharpshooter appeared in 80 regular-season games for the Golden State Warriors . In a grueling seven-game series against James Harden and the Houston Rockets, Swaggy P contributed eight 3-pointers and, shortly after that, took part in the Warriors' demolition of LeBron James ' Cleveland Cavaliers, winning the NBA Finals in a sweep.
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