Popovich Wins Kobe Bryant Over
Monday, February 21, 2005 - SpursReport Staff and Wire Reports
The relationship between former teammates Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal may have continued its icy course at this weekend's All-Star festivities, but Bryant had nothing but good things to say about his coach, San Antonio's Gregg Popovich.
Answering questions after the All-Star Game, Bryant said he was so inspired by Popovich, that he threw out his goal of playing only ten minutes and ended up playing more minutes than anybody.
"You know what," said Bryant. "Popovich just reeled me in. It was such a tremendous honor for me to play for Popovich and he's such a great coach.
"I always, you know, view Popovich as being one of the best coaches ever, and to play for him, I realize how great he is. I just enjoyed playing for the man."
Meanwhile, Bryant and O'Neal didn't speak to each other all weekend and avoided eye contact or shaking hands at the opening tip of Sunday's game.
By the time the weekend was over, Bryant was tired of talking about their strained relationship.
``I'm really not going to make this weekend about myself and Shaquille. That's just not fair, that's not basketball,'' Bryant said. ``It's a great weekend with a lot of great basketball being played. Obviously, I respect Shaquille tremendously for what he can do on the basketball floor and vice versa. Even when we played together we weren't the best of buddies, but we won three titles so I think everybody has to kind of leave that in the past and move on from it.''
O'Neal was apparently tired of the conversation as well. When asked why he didn't talk to Bryant all weekend, the big fella just broke into laughter.
Bryant will miss the Lakers' practice Monday to fly to Philadelphia after the death of his paternal grandfather, Joe Bryant. The Lakers' next game is at home Tuesday night against Boston.
