Antawn Jamison on Kobe: 'One of the easiest teammates'
One of the all-time biggest names in basketball said that he doesn't share the common belief that Los Angeles Lakers future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant is a difficult teammate. In fact, Jamison said that there aren't many better teammates than Bryant, at least in one particular facet of the game.
This all from an extensive interview with Jamison by Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News.
Jamison was a Laker for the 2012-13 season, during which he said he found Bryant to be, "one of the easiest teammates to sit down and have a conversation with about the game and about what we’re trying to do." Bryant was open, Jamison said, to a back-and-forth about the best approach on the floor and about what the Lakers were trying to do on the court: "He was receptive of that. That was probably one of the things that shocked me the most. When it came to the game of basketball, he soaked it up and you could talk to him without it being uncomfortable."
Jamison acknowledged that might not always have been the case with Bryant, however; like all of us, age might have mellowed out Bryant over the years: "He’s definitely receptive as far as being more patient and understanding that he’s not the Kobe of seven to eight years ago," Jamison said. "He can only do so much on his own. Maybe a rookie might not have that big of an impact with the success that he’s had on the past. But now at this particular juncture of his career and the state of organization in the rebuilding process, he will realize he needs those younger guys to go out there, participate and play well. So he has to do more building up than breaking down and being hard."
That could be music to the ears of the Lakers' potential incoming rookies, although many have expressed how much they look forward to the hard-nosed Bryant of legend. They'll likely get a heavy dose of that, too, once officially with the team. But we don't get to see the full breadth of what Bryant does for the Lakers, as Antawn Jamison was more than happy to remind us.
(h/t InsideSoCal.com)
Photo Credit: Jake Roth/USA Today Sports
