Kobe Bryant is perfectly fine retiring from the NBA with less than six championship rings.
Anything under five, though, would have been unacceptable.
According to Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News, Kobe wasn’t thrilled with the Lakers losing to the Los Angeles Clippers on Christmas Day. No surprises there. Even now, with the Los Angeles Lakers losing in excess, Kobe hates losing.
But he especially hates losing to Paul Pierce, now a member of the Clippers, whom he remembers losing to in the 2008 NBA Finals. That’s why he was taking the gaffe against the Clippers so hard. That is, until he remembered the Lakers exacted revenge upon Pierce’s Boston Celtics in 2010. He was totally fine after that.
Had the Lakers failed to win that championship, though, Kobe wouldn’t have been OK. Not even a little bit, per Medina:
But World Peace still remembered his promise to Bryant following the Lakers’ Game 6 loss to Boston in the 2008 NBA Finals. Then with the Houston Rockets, World Peace entered the Lakers’ locker room while Bryant showered.
“It was like shock. He was upset after he lost. So we talked for a minute and then I got the (heck) out of there,” World Peace said. “One day, I’d like to play with Kobe. He was one of my favorite players. He reminded me of (Michael) Jordan.”
World Peace signed with the Lakers as a free agent in 2009. A season later, he granted Bryant’s wish for revenge on Boston.
“If I lost that championship, I’d be miserable,” Bryant said. “I’d be absolutely miserable.”
Phew. We can all sleep easy now knowing that Kobe Bryant, hundred-millionaire, five-time NBA champion and future Hall of Famer, can sleep easy himself.
