To remember the life of Kobe Bryant five years following his heartbreaking passing, I spoke with Larry Nance Jr., who was a rookie during Bryant’s last season in the NBA.
Below are some snippets from the latest episode of my podcast. To open our conversation, I joked with Larry about how he and Kobe “combined” to score 68 points in Kobe’s final game:
Larry: Look, the 60 was a nice appetizer, but my eight was the meal we all came for. You know, honestly, what a special night. Truly. I mean, that was a really hard year. We had so many young guys there, we won 17 games. But the joy on people’s faces when they got to see Kobe in person for what they realized was the last time is just something I’ll never forget. I’ve done some cool things in my career, hopefully I can do some more cool things, but I can’t imagine what could take the place of that 60-point game. In terms of historic nights, I can’t imagine what could take the place of that.
Kevin: What was the first thing on your mind when you were drafted by the Lakers and knew you’d be a teammate of Kobe Bryant?
Larry: That was the one guy that you just knew like, “I can’t piss this guy off.” At that point, the older generation of players was kind of on the way out, but like, Kobe still had that mentality. KG was still in the league. There were certain guys that you just don’t mess with. And so the first thing, the first thing, all of us were just like, all right, how do I get on this guy’s good side? How do I stay? What do I have to do for this guy to just not put me in his sights? And I found that out pretty easy. All he asked of us was everything we had. That was it. And I can do that. Anybody can do that. No, he didn’t ask you to be a superstar. He didn’t ask you to make every shot. He just asked you for whatever you got, I need it all. I need whatever you got. 100% of it. And that’s how I got on the court my rookie year. It was just like defense and playing harder than anybody else. And I feel like we bonded over the fact that every possession we were both just trying at 100%.
Kobe Bryant and Larry Nance Jr. embrace after Bryant played his last NBA…
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