Former NBA player Stephen Jackson dropped by CBS Sports Radio for an engaging interview in which he reflected on his relationships with Tim Duncan, Don Nelson and, yes, Kobe Bryant, among others.
Jackson, 42, and Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in January at 41, were friends. Jackson said the public’s perception of Bryant was, for many years, inaccurate.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, and don’t listen to the media,” Jackson advised on The Zach Gelb Show. “Our problem with the black race is – and I have to say this – we’re the only people that crucifies our own race when we’re not guilty. Kobe’s been scrutinized for things he’s never been guilty for. It meant the world to me that people started to see that away from basketball he was a better human being. I got a chance to talk to him and to see his love for women’s basketball and his love for what his daughter was doing and being comfortable with being away from basketball as far as himself, it meant the world to me because I’ve seen the passion he put in basketball.
“I didn’t know if he could ever get away from that and let that go,” Jackson continued. “But the joy he had in his daughter, the joy he had in his books, the writing he was doing, having an Oscar and an Emmy already – the joy I’d seen in Kobe was something that I already knew, and I knew the person he was as a teenager. For people to see before he passed the father he was and the human being he was and the heart he had, it meant everything to me. He was pictured as this certain guy for so long, and it couldn’t have been so far from the truth.”
Bryant, an 18-time All-Star and five-time NBA champion, wasn’t known for being the easiest guy to play with. He achieved greatness thanks, in part, to his Mamba mentality, but he had no patience for teammates who did not share his commitment to excellence.
Yes, even among hyper-competitive alphas, Bryant was a cut above.
“When you get to a level of success, you want to enjoy that,” said Jackson, who co-hosts the "All The Smoke" podcast with Matt Barnes. “You start doing things that you always wanted to do. You take some time from basketball to start enjoying some of the fruits of your labor. Kobe works hard, and he had a lot of things that he could do. Well, as athletes, when you make money like that, you tend to enjoy yourself. Kobe didn’t do that. Kobe was locked in on working out, working out, working out.”
Jackson shared a story in which Bryant and Allen Iverson were hanging out in Los Angeles. Iverson wanted to go out and explore the town; Bryant wanted to go to the gym.
So he did.
“Everything was about going to the gym and that was even when he was spending time with Allen Iverson,” Jackson said. “The focus he had, the drive he had, and the will to be great knowing what you had to do and knowing what you had to sacrifice, me personally as a 14-year vet, I wasn’t smart enough and I didn’t have it in me to sacrifice what Kobe sacrificed – and that’s the difference between being great and being an NBA player. I was solid – 13,000 points scored, championship and all that. But Kobe was great. Five championships. Kobe was great because he sacrificed so much and people don’t understand the sacrifice he made. You have to be a player to really understand that.”