Kobe Bryant retired with a flourish at the end of the 2016 season, making some feel that he had more to give the game even in his late 30s. But his retirement has stood firm in the years since. He got his jersey numbers retired last season and has moved on from the Los Angeles Lakers.
Bryant has been busy in retirement — he won an Oscar with his production company and is even starting a podcast. But rumors still persist that he’s thinking about playing again. Even in the BIG3, what’s essentially been a spot for those still interested in playing to get a shot at the spotlight once more. Bryant and the BIG3 itself shot down reports this week that Kobe might want to come back, or that the league is asking him to come back.
And it appears that Bryant is, indeed, serious about staying away from the court. in an interview with Rich Eisen released Friday he made it clear that he has no interest in making a return to basketball.
Bryant laughed when Eisen even asked about playing for the Lakers again, even with LeBron James wearing purple and gold.
“There’s about a zero percent chance that I come back and play,” Bryant said.
Eisen asked if he ever thought about a return during his first year away from the game, and it brought out a brief monologue about his motivations in retirement. In essence, people assuming Bryant would miss basketball too much drove him further away from the game itself.
“Here’s the thing: for us athletes it’s really hard to transition, right? And I was really personal about it in ‘Dear Basketball.’ But that is the true challenge of finding what comes next. And finding something that you love to do every bit as much as you loved your first passion. That is a challenge for us. And unfortunately for us athletes we’ve been pigenholed into thinking that we can only be one thing. So when I retired everybody was saying ‘He’s too competitive. He’s not going to know what to do with himself. He’s going to have to come back.”
“I took that as a personal challenge of them thinking that I’m this one-dimensional person. That all I know is how to dribble a ball, shoot the ball, play basketball and compete at that level. So I took it as a personal challenge. That I will never come back to the game. Ever. I’m here to show people that we can do much more than that.”
It’s an interesting motivation for sure, but in the wake of the “more than an athlete” refrain others like LeBron James have taken up the message is enforced even further. Bryant wants to prove that there’s more to him than his legendary competitive streak and banners at the Staples Center. So far he’s gotten off to an impressive start in that endeavor, and he’s not looking back at what he’s already accomplished to find what he plans to do next.
