With the return of the NBA season comes unwavering coverage of one of its greatest players of all time, Kobe Bryant.
An unquestioned legend, Bryant is a rarity in today’s NBA as he’s played his entire career for the same team. But will he retire with that team?
There hasn’t been a shortage of attention paid to what Bryant, who’s entering the final year of his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, will do after this season, which we saw last week when New York Knicks President and Bryant’s former coach Phil Jackson implied that the star shooting guard would suit up elsewhere after this year.
“I don’t think it’s his last year. Sounds like it may be his last year as a Laker, but I think that’s kind of what came out of there,” the Zen-master said in response to a question about whether he’d pursue Bryant in free agency next summer.
Bryant was prompted about Jackson’s comments on Tuesday, and he told Yahoo Sports “I’m a Laker, man. I’m a Laker for better or worse.” Not exactly the most affirmative way to deny that he could wind up elsewhere (he did also add a “dude, I bleed purple and gold”), but this was Bryant’s way of shooting down his former coach, who he won five NBA championships with.
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