While winning five rings with the Lakers as a prolific coach-player tandem, the relationship between Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant was fraught with mind games that pushed Bryant to tell himself: “F— it, I’m done with this guy.”
In a revealing interview with GQ Magazine published online Tuesday and slated for the March print issue, Bryant describes the complex psychology that prevailed in the relationship between the Zen Master — now the president of the Knicks — and the basketball predator who nicknamed himself the Black Mamba.
“I was very stubborn,” Bryant told the magazine. “I was like a wild horse that had the potential to become Secretariat, but who was just too f—ing wild. So part of that was him trying to tame me. He’s also very intelligent, and he understood the dynamic he had to deal with between me and Shaq.”
Bryant felt Jackson was trying to make him out to be the bad guy, and their relationship rapidly deteriorated — even if Bryant acknowledges it motivated him to be “great.”
“Another thing was that I would go to him in confidence and talk about certain things, and he would then use those things to manipulate the media against me,” Bryant explained. “And from that standpoint, I finally said, ‘No way. I’m not gonna deal with that anymore.’ This was during our first run, during those first three championships [2000-02]. So when he’d come out in the press and say those things about me, I was finally like, ‘F— it. I’m done with this guy. I’ll play for him and win championships, but I will have no interaction with him.’
read the rest on http://nypost.com/2015/02/17/kobe-br...-to-the-brink/
But, yet the measure of the man is revealed as Phil comes back, hat-in-hand begging for a job & Kobe permits it.
Bend over, I will ing give you what you have been begging for.
All 50 shades of it.
So
in
classy
Zen went Zed on da mamba!
Get your facts straight old man. Buss was on all fours after the disaster that was 04-05 with RudyT and company. They had to cave and pay him 12 mil per year, which to date is the highest coaching salary in NBA history.
He came back, tail tucked and begged for a hand down. Kobe, took pity on 'em and gave him a job.
They came begging. He said I won't coach that rat lest you pay me more than anybody in history. Buss only got off all fours to sign the check.
lil kirby will always be Shaq and Pau's sidekick tbh
Holy , Phil was very popular in NY
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Kirby whining about anyone else manipulating the media... this guy has gone certifiably crazy.
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