Kobe Announces He Will Retire After This Season

I hope he still makes the national team, so that he at least gets another Gold Medal.

 

It's weird, it's like night and day because just a few years ago he was competing for the scoring title with Kevin Durant I believe, but the injuries did him in, that's how I feel.

People probably still won't appreciate him though he's not playing anymore. It was such a dark cloud over him as a player, only years later to see fans appreciate his style of basketball on other players. It's really unfortunate because he really is the last of a dying breed.

Oh well he was going to retire sooner or later. I just wanted him to potentially add something else to his career before he left though.

 

That would be cool, and a nice little exclamation point to his career.

 

I always liked George

 

Grew up watching him ... The end of a era ...

Thanks for the great memories and the 5 titles ...

I'm mad at the current situation but 17 seasons overcome 3 sad seasons and it's not close !

I wish he would have at least tied the 17 of the C-bags but I'll guess it will be for our next legend


LES LEGENDES NE MEURENT JAMAIS

 

I noticed this from the highlights as well. Major respect for George for doing that.

 

Thanks for everything Bean. We grew up and got older together, you will be MISSED. Take on an agent job and send your clients our way

 

Why Kobe Bryant decided it was time to retire

By Adrian Wojnarowski44 minutes ago Yahoo Sports


http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-kobe-bryant-decided-it-was-time-to-retire-070605697.html

Kobe Bryant carved into a steak at a Minneapolis restaurant and considered the end of everything. His body hadn't begun to break down, but it turned out that betrayal would come soon. On a frigid November night, Bryant had started to anticipate all the years and all the young legs getting over on him, inspiring a declaration that he'd never stay too long.

"Just thinking about some of the guys that I take advantage of now, taking advantage of me later – that doesn't sit too well with me," Bryant told me.

Three years later, they're getting over on Kobe Bryant. For as excruciating as it's been for everyone to watch him struggle this way, it's far worse for him to endure. He can't work his way out of this trouble. He can't lose himself in the practice gym and make it all better.

It isn't ending for Kobe Bryant.

It is over.

He isn't losing it.

It's gone.

"My body knows it's time to say goodbye," Bryant wrote in a poem made public on Sunday night. The inevitable is etched within the record now. He is a forever talent in the NBA, a forever achiever of five championships and an MVP. Bryant has been a tortured genius, a talent born of relentless repetition and peerless passion. Few ever cared so deeply for a craft, ever committed such deep devotion.


Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were walking into the room. As they passed in the corridor, Bryant stopped and shook his head and told them, "You all are two bad mother-------. I'm glad I'm done with you."

What Bryant was trying to say, of course: Done with them for that season. As it turns out, he'd never play deeper into the playoffs than those young stars again.

Here he was, about to turn 32 years old, and walking out of the arena in Oklahoma City and he told me that victory had strangely rivaled the fulfillment of the 2009 NBA championship, the 2008 NBA Finals appearance. They were versions of his younger self, and holding them off promised to be an impossibility.

"More than last year or the year before, this means something because now they're trying to force me out," Bryant told me. "They're trying to force me out. And I'm not going anywhere."

Two years later, the three of them would spend the summer together with USA Basketball on the way to the London Olympics. Back in 2008 with Team USA, Bryant could still intimidate LeBron James – with those around the league's two biggest stars marveling at the ways with which Bryant preyed on James' vulnerabilities. Only, James was a different man in 2012 – an NBA champion now – and had surpassed Bryant as the world's best player.

Bryant could no longer mess with James and gain a competitive advantage come the NBA season. So, he spent the summer imploring Westbrook that he couldn't let Durant win another NBA scoring title, trying to send him back to Oklahoma City with gunning on his mind. Kobe couldn't worry about the East anyway – he needed to get out of the West again.


Indiana Pacers on Sunday night, Bryant travels to Philadelphia for his final game in his childhood home on Tuesday. The Lakers will play the 76ers, who have lost 28 consecutive games, the most in modern professional sports history – and the Lakers will still probably be the underdog.


That's the destitute place these Lakers and Bryant exist now, the residue of a fractured franchise and a broken-down body. Three weeks ago, Bryant still held onto hope that there was a way out of this trouble, that minimal practice time in the preseason would give way to stronger legs and balance, that repetition would get him back into a groove. Outside a waiting car at the Barclays Center, on the night that was the beginning of his goodbye tour, Bryant was still trying to convince himself that there was good basketball left in him, that he could resurrect a respectability to his game.

"I get held to much higher standards than most of my peers," he told me. "If I have a bad shooting night, it's, 'He's in the grave. He's in the coffin.' Look around the league, and other players have bad shooting nights – and it's just a bad shooting night.

"But the expectations that they have for me, they're actually something that I appreciate. Achilles injury. Fractured knee. Torn shoulder. Twentieth year in the league. Thirty-seven years old. All that, and the expectations are that I average 30 points.

"But I appreciate those standards, because it's something that still pushes me, still drives me.

"Let's see what I can do."

There's no magic left to Kobe Bryant's game, no reconciliation of memories and reality. This is hard to watch, but harder to live. This is everything that he never wanted – all those younger guys getting over on him now. As a fading thirty-something legend, there are no more mind games to play on a younger generation. Mostly, there are no more to play on himself. These are the final months and weeks now, the excruciating end, and goodbye can't come soon enough for Kobe Bean Bryant.

 

It really is history's loss.

 

^ that Woj article is garbage.

I'm lost for words. I am just filled with complete sadness. I'm 33, I grew up with Kobe. I was there when we snatched him from the Hornets and I was so excited to have him! I just knew he was going to special. You could see it right away. I don't know what else to say or feel besides sadness and reflect on so much that he has given us.

 

Good for Kobe. I'm happy for him that he's content and able to let basketball go. I was worried what the hell he was gonna do when his career is over. I'm happy that he's at a point where he feels like basketball isn't his entire life anymore and that there are bigger and better things ahead. He deserves that.

Kobe has given everything to the game and then some. If anyone deserves to enjoy retirement it's him. I'm sad that it's all, but over for him. The reality is it's been over since that brutal Achilles injury because there was no way he was ever gonna be the same Kobe after that. The injuries obviously took their physical toll, but also a mental one. No doubt about it. The fact that he kept trying to come back and come back after each devastating injury is pretty amazing in itself.

It's been an incredible ride for Kobe. For us as fans. This man gave us so much greatness. So much excitement. Endless great memories that we'll all have. I was always worried about the Lakers post Kobe, but with what we have in Clarkson, Randle, and Russell we'll be just fine. It definitely softens the blow for Kobe I'm sure knowing he can finally give the keys to the franchise to these young guys. Everyone's time comes. Magic's came, Kareem, Wilt, and now it's Kobe.

 

Kobe at his best

 

Also f*** you Mike D'Antoni for ruining Kobe's career. That is unforgivable to me. You have to be a special kind of incompetent to play a 34 year old guard with so much mileage 40 plus minutes a game like he did.

 

always liked JRSm... no, can't do it. But he talks smart for the first time in years it seems

 

Let's be honest here :
F*** Nash
F*** Coward for complaining about his touches

and even if I like him and he's part of our history :

F*** Pau for complaining about his role.

If these three played for the team and stepped their game up , Kobe wouldn't have needed to play so many minutes for us to qualify for the postseason .

 

Before he went down as well he was playing exceptional.