Kobe is Kobe. He is one of the best to ever play this game. Given the opportunity, he can embarrass you.
Every since I started playing basketball, I wanted to be just like Kobe. To get to see him play in person, and to meet him, was just a dream come true.
The best player I've ever played against is Kobe Bryant. I have seen him do some stuff that is just unbelievable.
If everyone had a superpower, Kobe would be the Hulk. Kobe could take on a whole team by himself and he's willing to do that. So, Kobe is like I'll go 5-1, I don't care. I'm still going to win. I put in more work than all five of you guys.
At the end of the day, the only person to have a better Kobe sneaker game than me is Kobe himself.
I had an unbelievable opportunity here to try and follow in similar footsteps [of Michael Jordan], but in a different capacity hopefully. I took that opportunity and I'm excited about it.
Me, growing up, I was a Kobe fan, Kobe fanatic, and just getting, just being able to just wear his shoes, it's my favorite shoe to play in.
I had the Kobe jersey. I would do the Kobe walk. I would walk around the house doing the Kobe stare-down face. Anything you can name, I was idolizing him, trying to be like him.
Kobe's dedication to the game is unreal. And I mean that in the truest sense... it was literally unbelievable.
I wore the number 24 in high school my freshman, sophomore year because of him. I wore Kobe Bryant basketball shoes because of Kobe Bryant. Every time I laced up my basketball shoes, I felt like I had Kobe Bryant with me. I had a little part of him - I had his jumper, his fadeaway.
Just about everybody in the world thinks the world of George Kittle. He's an unbelievable person with an unbelievable amount of energy. How he plays the game with the tenacity is one of a kind.
The thing is I'm with Nike and I don't want to wear any other player's shoe. No Giannis or LeBron - I'm not going to wear those, and it narrows what you can wear. But with the Kobe's, who cares because Kobe is Kobe. You can wear his shoe because it's Kobe. They look great, the feel great and it represents something.
The Kobe craze really annoyed me. Most of the practitioners had no real understanding of the product and were abusing it and exploiting it in terrible and ridiculous ways. Kobe beef should not be used in a hamburger. It's completely pointless.
I'm not looking forward to a specific person per se; I'm just excited to meet everyone. I respect greatness and I'm just going to soak in anyone I meet.
Don't ever know who you may meet, or just because a person may not be dressed up all fancy, don't mean they're not an important person. You just don't ever know who you're gonna meet in life. So that's why I look at everybody as equal. Can't just judge. I treat everybody with respect. Every man.
Every person you meet - and everything you do in life - is an opportunity to learn something.