In Kobe Bryan’s initial meeting with Mike Brown, he cautioned the Lakers’ newly hired coach “not to pull back,†to coach him “like everyone else; otherwise the players will turn on you,†Bryant told me during dinner in Los Angeles just before Christmas.  Read more after the jump.
Bryant said he’d heard Brown didn’t yell at LeBron James and acknowledged Phil Jackson didn’t yell at him.
“Phil coached everyone different because he’s Phil. His rings gave him license to do that. Pat (Riley) and Pop (Gregg Popovich) also have earned that right; nobody else,†Bryant said of his former coach.
Brown now has coached Bryant, floppy (right) disc aside, to four straight efficient 40-point (31, 31, 31 and 28 attempts) and eight-of-nine 30-plus, out-of-wedlock productions.
In his 16th season, the 33-year-old Bryant leads the NBA (31.2) in scoring. He is the oldest in league history to do what he’s in the midst of doing. What’s more, his weapons of construction have amassed 111 40-point-or-more monuments.
Only fellow Philly native Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged an unthinkable 50.4 in the 1961-62 season, and Michael Jordan compiled more.
NY Post
