Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant gestures while arguing with a referee during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
SAN ANTONIO –Kobe Bryant’s voice reached fever pitch. He let out a string of expletives with as much volume as one of his shooting outbursts. He demeaned teammates about their talent and effort.
With the media let in to practice on Thursday to see this incident take place, the footage soon went viral and hit the airwaves.
All of which prompted Lakers coach Byron Scott to say, so what?
“It’s a practice where guys go at each other,” Scott said after morning shootaround on Friday for the Lakers’ game tonight against San Antonio at AT&T Center. “That’s not the first time he has gone at those guys and it’s not the first time they’ve gone back at him. Last night, I’m looking at ESPN and it says Kobe goes off in practice. To me, it wasn’t that big of a deal. To me, it was fun.”
Instead, Scott viewed Bryant’s practice on Thursday as significant for another reason. He actually practiced. Scott has held out Bryant in practices and shootarounds for the last two weeks to rest his 36-year-old body. This happened after Bryant shared that he felt “heavy legs,” particularly toward the end of games.
But Bryant practiced on Thursday, both after improving his energy level and the Lakers benefiting from having two days in between games. Scott said he would like to practice Bryant when the Lakers have multiple days in between games. The Lakers will have that next week with three days in between Monday’s game in Indiana and Friday’s home game against Oklahoma City. Scott reflected on his own anxiousness during his 14-year NBA career when he faced multiple days in between games.
“I felt like I was losing something,” Scott said. “It wasn’t enough to just get shots up. If I took a day off or had a day off, that next day I wanted to get a nice lather going.”
Scott could also related to Bryant’s intensity in practice, noting his often turned out as feisty and competitive as Bryant’s outburst on Thursday.
Scott first remembered teaming with Bryant and Derek Fisher their rookie seasons 19 years ago and squaring up against Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones and others.
“We were kicking the [expletive] out of them,” Scott said.
Scott then reflected on his years with the Showtime Lakers that included Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper and James Worthy playing for coach Pat Riley. Scott reported Cooper would often have contentious exchanges with both himself and Johnson.
“That was every day, practice was like that,” Scott said. “The only difference is Riles would say if the blue team beat us, Magic would say, ‘Let’s play again.’ Then it’s 1-1. Let’s play a third game. We had a competitive nature, but it was a bunch of us.”
The Lakers hardly have the same talent as those Showtime teams. Hence, their 6-16 record. But Scott argued Bryant’s tirade will help elevate his teammates.
“It really tests us to see who goes back at him and who’s not. That’s what he wants to find out,” Scott said of Bryant. “That was one of our best practices in a while because everybody was so intense and the players were coming up to me after practice and saying, ‘Let’s go again.’ I said guys we got three games in the next four nights. We can’t go again. It was made such a big deal that it wasn’t that serious.”
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