Kobe says he wanted Shaq to win in Miami because he needed people to blame him for blowing up the Lakers so he could use the anger as fuel
Shaq: “After we split apart, were you trying to get more championships than me?”
“Oh, absolutely. I knew you were going to get one. I knew you were going to get one because of the energy going into Miami and D-Wade and everything that was there. So I knew I had to get at least two or three.”
“I wanted you to get that because I needed that. I wanted people to say, ‘See? See, this is what they’re missing here. This is what they gave up for.’ ‘Kobe should have been the one to go.’ I needed that.”
“I wanted everybody to hate me. I wanted to fuel off of that and just come back with so much anger and so much vengeance. So when you won, right after you won, I went out to the track and I ran. I did my conditioning. I did my drills.”
“I woke up the next morning. I hit my weights. I did my thousand shots. I did everything humanly possible to get myself ready. I was like, ‘All right. Yeah. Good. I needed it.’”
🚨 Pep Guardiola on Kyle Walker leaving for AC Milan in the middle of a crisis: ⚠️
“You cannot behave as a captain the way he did in our toughest moments. I hated seeing staff laughing and eating after losses while I couldn't even sleep.”
Brutal standards. Elite mentality. 🥶