Yesterday I wrote about how Dwyane Wade was likely the first person outside Kobe’s family to know he was going to retire at the end of this season. He told him back in early November, way before Kobe penned his letter for The Players Tribune, in which he told the world he was retiring. As it turns out, his coach Byron Scott also found out before the rest of us (as you would expect) but it came in a very surprising fashion.
@IamJoeSports
In an interview with ESPN on Friday, Scott revealed the details of that exchange, which he said occurred at the start of the third quarter of the Lakers’ 108-96 loss to the Trail Blazers last Saturday.
“I said, ‘KB, I played you 20 minutes in the first half. I’m going to cut those minutes down. I’ve got to cut them down,'” Scott said after his team’s morning shootaround ahead of their game against the Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena. “He said, ‘That’s good, coach. That’s all right. I’m going to announce my retirement after the game.'”
For his part, Bryant, 37, said he really hadn’t planned on telling Scott, and especially not during the game.
“I have no idea. I don’t know,” Bryant said on why he made his revelation during play. “It just slipped out. It just slipped out. He was worried about the minutes. I said, it doesn’t matter. I’m not playing next year anyway. He was like [gives an odd stare]. I looked at him at his face, and I realized I said it. He was just shocked. I said, you know what? I’m just leaving him like that. I’m not even going to soften him up. I’m just going to mess with him a little bit.
“Then after the game, he walks by and he goes, ‘Hey, um, remember what you said during the game?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Did you mean it? I said, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘OK, all right.’ But it just kind of slipped out.”
Nothing like finding out your star player is planning on calling it quits while you have a game to coach. “I told him the next day, ‘You know you shocked the s— out of me when you told me that,'” Scott said. “He just started laughing. I said, ‘You really did.’ He said, ‘I know. I could see it on your face.'”
Even though we all know it’s coming it is still gonna be strange seeing the NBA next season with no Kobe in the league.
