Lakers: Recalling a Tense Moment Between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant in the Olympics
Legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is retiring at the end of the 2021-22 college season. After 5 NCAA titles, 3 Olympic Gold Medals, and over 1100 wins, he's calling it a career. And while he will be missed in basketball, the stories that have come from his retirement announcement have been legendary.
One of them involves a couple of Lakers greats and a moment that was seldom talked about before this week. During the 2008 Olympic run for Team USA, there were some really intense moments. That's bound to happen when you combine the NBA's best and brightest and try to get them to play together.
But according to a book excerpt from Ian O'Connor, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James briefly butt heads in a big way. Following a close win against Australia in which Kobe took a few questionable shot attempts, Bron had words for Coach K.
“Everyone knew it. They know when another player is being selfish. Players can police themselves, but in this instance, as LeBron was coming out of the game, he said to Mike, ‘Yo, Coach, you’d better fix that motherf-----,’ as he walks by. He was talking about Kobe.”
Apparently, Coach K later pulled Kobe aside and addressed some of those shots. To sum it up, he told him that he did not like the shot selection and that he needed to be better. And in a very Kobe Bryant way, he agreed and said that he would be better.
It's not often that a coach will get talked to the way that LeBron addressed Coach K. And it's not often that an Olympic coach will get the opportunity to call out a legend like Kobe. But that's what the 2008 team was all about.
From there, Team USA would move on to take down Spain in the Olympic Finals. It was their first of what would be 3 gold medals under Coach k. What a career.
