Kobe Bryant has never shied away from speaking his mind.
That didn't change Friday, when the Lakers' superstar was a quote machine following his team's 118-111 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. Chief among Bryant's topics was wanting his teammates, particularly point guard Jeremy Lin, to be more aggressive.
Lin did just that when he passed on delivering the ball to Bryant and drained a key 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter. It was a play that got Bryant's attention.
"You have to be able to assert yourself, especially on a team that I'm playing on - especially on a team I'm playing on," Bryant said, according to Baxter Holmes of ESPN. "Because I don't want chumps, I don't want pushovers, and if you're a chump and a pushover, I will run over you."
Bryant credited Lin's toughness and was pleased to see the first-year Lakers guard come through for his team down the stretch.
"You've got to put your mark down, man," Bryant said. "At some point, you've got to piss on the fire hydrant."
This kind of talk is nothing new for the 36-year-old Bryant, who has garnered a reputation for being tough on teammates. He showed the best way to back up that tough love and demands for more aggressiveness when he threw down a vintage reverse slam in the first quarter of Friday's loss:
That didn't change Friday, when the Lakers' superstar was a quote machine following his team's 118-111 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. Chief among Bryant's topics was wanting his teammates, particularly point guard Jeremy Lin, to be more aggressive.
Lin did just that when he passed on delivering the ball to Bryant and drained a key 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter. It was a play that got Bryant's attention.
"You have to be able to assert yourself, especially on a team that I'm playing on - especially on a team I'm playing on," Bryant said, according to Baxter Holmes of ESPN. "Because I don't want chumps, I don't want pushovers, and if you're a chump and a pushover, I will run over you."
Bryant credited Lin's toughness and was pleased to see the first-year Lakers guard come through for his team down the stretch.
"You've got to put your mark down, man," Bryant said. "At some point, you've got to piss on the fire hydrant."
This kind of talk is nothing new for the 36-year-old Bryant, who has garnered a reputation for being tough on teammates. He showed the best way to back up that tough love and demands for more aggressiveness when he threw down a vintage reverse slam in the first quarter of Friday's loss:
