Lou Williams Reflects on Kobe Bryant's Willingness to Help Others
As the Clippers returned to practice and attempted to move forward following the tragic deaths of Kobe Bryant and eight others, including his daughter Gianna, they reflected on some of their favorite memories of the departed legend.
Lou Williams was teammates with Bryant during his final season in 2015-16. Williams said that he wished he had been around Bryant at a different point in his career, when he didn't have to work so hard to get the most out of his body. Lou thinks that Kobe would have helped push him to an entirely new level in his game, something he was unable to do as he labored through his 20th year in the league.
Williams also shared some lighthearted stories, like when the Lakers lost so badly to Portland that Bryant said the other players on the team didn't deserve to wear Kobes, and he threw all the shoes out.
"The shoe thing was pretty funny because Nick Young wore Adidas and I wore Peak, so it wasn't a personal problem for us, so we thought it was hilarious," Williams said. "Nick and I were the only two guys in the locker room when this was happening, so we thought it was the funniest thing in the world that this was happening because it didn't affect us personally."
Although most people saw the sharp side of Kobe, a.k.a. the Black Mamba part of his personality, Williams said that Bryant actually had a soft nature. He thought Bryant put on a front of being mean so that people would respect him as a competitor.
"I told him once, we had a conversation and I said, 'Yo, I'm on to you,'" Williams said. "He's like, 'What you mean?' I said, 'You want people to think you're a jerk. But you're one of the nicest guys in the world. That's how you want to be remembered when you're done playing, like you want everyone to think you was this hard-ass competitor and just a jerk to everybody.' But I said, 'That's not your nature, that's not your natural nature.' I said, 'You're forcing your mean on everybody else.'"
Instead, Williams thinks that people should remember the kinder side of Bryant, a person who regularly engaged in philanthropy and took younger players in the league under his wing. Even before the creation of the Mamba Academy, Bryant invited younger players to train with him. His influence is seen throughout the league in the next generation.
Players throughout the league have credited the Mamba Mentality for inspiring them, and the number of players who have changed their jersey numbers from 8 and 24 speaks to the breadth of Bryant's impact.
"I thought he had a boatload of knowledge that he could give to guys, and thankfully for a lot of these young players he was willing to share his experiences, and share the things that he understood about the game and give it to the younger guys," Williams said. "I think that’s going to be great to move the game forward."
Even though Bryant won't be present to witness it, his legacy lives on throughout the NBA in the players who remember him, and those like Williams who were inspired by his example.
