Kobe Bryant calls Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson 'stone-cold killers'

Kobe Bryant is widely recognized as the fiercest competitor of his generation, an on-court killer whose only focus was winning above all else. 

In an interview with ESPN, when asked which players in today's NBA have a Kobe-like instinct, Bryant named Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson specifically, and explained why he enjoys their particular brand of basketball.

"There's several of them out there right now that approach the game extremely, extremely seriously," Bryant said. "I get a kick out of watching Golden State play, because they seem very unassuming. You know, Klay and Steph seem very calm and (like) nice guys. Those guys are stone-cold killers, man. They don't care about what you think of them. They don't care about if they make a game-winning shot or miss it. They're out there to do their job, and they have a very strong sense of killer instinct."

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. The Warriors are historically great, and they're favored to win a second straight championship. Those things don't happen unless you have players like Curry and Klay who are laser-focused on achieving their goals, and Bryant knows that better than perhaps anyone else.