Kobe Bryant Isn’t Happy With How ESPN Used His Quote About Lonzo Ball Needing To ‘Get Better’

Kobe Bryant is one of the most beloved Los Angeles Lakers of all-time, while rookie Lonzo Ball is only a couple of months into his NBA career, and he’s already one of the most polarizing.

Like it or not, the Big Ball Brand story, from LaVar to Lonzo to LaMelo to LiAngelo, is one of the biggest talking points in sports today. LaVar has Donald Trump beefing with him, so in a lot of ways, the entire narrative here transcends the sports world, but regardless of what box you want to put Big Baller Brand in, it’s only natural that a Lakers icon like Kobe would be asked about Lonzo and the family in every interview he gives these days. That’s how the internet works.

In an interview Kobe Bryant did with Chris McGee on Spectrum SportsNet’s ‘Connected With‘, he answered the standard Lonzo questions with a fair amount of detail. In the interest of giving proper context, because that is ultimately what we’re talking about here, I’m going to drop Bryant’s answers below. The transcript comes courtesy of The Daily Hampshire Gazette’s Adam Hargraves.

Stemming from Bryant’s comments on Connected With, ESPN created the following graphic, and shared it on social media.

ESPN’s graphic reads: “He needs to get better now. … If you’re just patiently going about it, you’ll never get there.”

If you just saw ESPN’s pull graphic, it sure looks like Bryant is delivering heavy criticism in Lonzo’s direction. Not only does it look like Kobe is knocking Lonzo’s play, but it also suggests that Lonzo is going about his development “patiently” and you could interpret it as if Ball isn’t working hard enough to improve.

If you look at Bryant’s full quote, it’s pretty clear he’s talking about the mentality it takes to get better, and isn’t really singling Lonzo out at all. Kobe talks about how development almost happens by accident if you have that urgency to win now, instead of accepting that with patience, development comes. In other words, if you’re trying to compete on every possession in every game, rather than ‘being patient’ you will inevitably develop because of how hard you’re working at all times.

Bryant voiced his displeasure with how ESPN framed his comments on Twitter Sunday night, tweeting and re-tweeting a plethora of thoughts with regards to how ESPN pulled his quotes out of context.

In ESPN’s defense, the nature of the business they are in is link clicks, and engagement, and user interest. A significant part of the industry is finding the juiciest quote or tidbit in a story, and using that to package an article or post for your audience. Everyone does it, and yes, you will inevitably lose a lot of context in the process.

Headlines will always lack context because there’s a limit to the length a headline can be, however, the ever-growing prevalence of pull quotes on social media brings even further problems by often not even linking to a piece of content that could provide that context. In this case, ESPN’s post not only pulls a quote out of context, but also misrepresented the point Bryant was actually trying to make with the mashup of two points with an ellipses in place of a lot of words in between.

Bryant was understandably upset, and this is a good lesson for everyone, from athletes to content creators to users who engage with any outlet on social media. In most cases, any headline or quote image or social media post is going to be missing the most important element, and that’s context.