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Kobe set for career’s last season
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Kobe Bryant says he still loves competition, but admits that his body can no longer handle the rigors of professional basketball as he announced on Sunday that this will be his final NBA season.
“I had to come to terms with it,” said Bryant, speaking after the Lakers 103-107 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Los Angeles. “I had to accept the fact I didn’t want to do this anymore.”
The 37-year-old five-time champion will retire as one of the greatest clutch players in history, and after spending his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I have known for awhile. I am very solid with this decision,” he said. “If I had a burning desire to play I would.
“I don’t want to get too Zen like. But my mind always started drifting toward basketball and it doesn’t do that all the time anymore. To me that is the first indicator that this game isn’t something I can obsess over much longer.”
Bryant, a member of two Olympic US gold medal squads, has been nagged by injuries in recent years and has struggled to find his form this season, as the Lakers are off to a miserable 2-14 start.
Bryant said that despite the injuries, the never-ending rehabs and the habitual losing over the last few seasons, he is still enjoys getting out on the floor and going into battle.
“There is no sadness in this,” he said. “I had such great times.
“I find beauty in adversity and not being able to play at the highest level.”
Bryant, who trails only Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone on the NBA’s scoring list, has averaged 25.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists over 1,280 games.
This season, with the Lakers stripped of much of the supporting cast that usually bolsters him, Bryant was averaging 15.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.4 assists heading into Sunday’s game.
Bryant was introduced to a roaring ovation when the game began.
Before the game, Bryant crafted a goodbye poem to basketball which was posted on The Players’ Tribune website. In the poem he hearkened back to his boyhood days and dreams of playing in the National Basketball Association.
“My heart can take the pounding, My mind can handle the grind, But my body knows it’s time to say goodbye,” he wrote in his poem. “And that’s OK. I’m ready to let you go. I want you to know now, So we both can savor every moment we have left together. The good and the bad. We have given each other, All that we have.”
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