Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and Hall of Famer Allen Iverson will always be connected.
Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant shared many battles throughout their career. I still remember watching game 2 of the 2001 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers as they jawed back and forth.
They were competitive and showed no mercy once they stepped foot on the court. The respect and admiration were evident as both players retired sharing stories about how they pushed each other to become better basketball players.
They would both enter the NBA in 1996 and become all-star caliber players whose style and play inspired the next generation of athletes. In their 3rd season in the league, AI would drop 41 points and 10 assists against Kobe and the Lakers. This game would drive Kobe to better his game.
In his 2017 Players’ Tribune article, Bryant wrote:
"“I obsessively read every article and book I could find about AI… watched every game he had played… searched for any weakness I could find. This led me to study how great white sharks hunt seals off the coast of South Africa. The patience. The timing. The angles.”"
When I first read this article I was shocked to hear Kobe Bryant literally studied great white sharks…. WHAT!? The following season Kobe would get his chance to guard AI in the second half of the game, Iverson had 16 points up until then and he would remain at 16. Bryant held him scoreless in the second half and also recorded the game-winning block on AI as the Lakers won 87-84.
The respect was always mutual between these two, last week fans celebrated what would have been Kobe’s 42nd birthday and it still doesn’t feel real that one of the all-time greatest players is no longer here.
Allen Iverson would go on to write about Kobe on 8/24 for The Players’ Tribune article titled Dear Kobe. I highly recommend reading this heartfelt and emotional letter showing how these two pushed each other to achieve greatness.
AI would go on and say, “You were the toughest man that I’ve ever seen in this game. The most cold-blooded serial killer I’ve ever seen. The fiercest competitor I’ve ever seen… You were KOBE, and you were gonna do whatever you wanted to do out there… and now I’m talking about you in the past tense, and I still get emotional about it.”
As I reflect on the career and stories these two shared I can’t help but smile. Everyone needs that one person to push them to be better and Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant were that for each other.