Kobe Bryant on Retirement, Media Criticism & Who Would Win in Michael Jordan Match-Up [VIDEO]

Bryant says that getting to the decision was “a slow process.”

It was something that kind of evolved over the last three years, you know, with the Achilles injury, that really frightened me. Because you know, it was like, ‘My career could be over now.’ It scared me. ‘What am I going do next?’ sort of thing. So I took that time to start trying to figure that out.

Bryant also addressed whether he feels the media has been fair to him:

You can’t just sit around expecting everybody just to … give praise all the time, right? You’ve got to be able to take the good with the bad.

He continues:

The important thing is to not allow any of those things … to affect your play, to affect your psyche. Because it’s irrelevant. You just stay in the moment. And you just be.

When asked whether he had accomplished everything he want to on the court, he replied:

No. No. I wanted eight championships, as a dreamy kid, growing up … I wanted eight.”

He explains:

Because Magic (Johnson) had five. And then Michael (Jordan) had six. And then I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to win eight.’ And had the opportunity to have seven and didn’t work out. But that was my — that was my childhood dream was to try to win eight (championships)– how ridiculous does that sound?

Bryant has talked about wanting to have his place in the history of the game, and Roberts how he saw himself compared to other great players.

No, I would never put myself in the starting five ever. I put the people that I’ve actually learned the most from, being Jordan, Magic, (Larry) Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Jerry West. Those are the players that personally I’ve learned the most from.

Bryant adds:

To be mentioned in the same breath as those players, honestly, to me is — I mean, that’s everything. I mean, we’ll sit and debate endlessly who was better, who would win in a one-on-one matchup between myself and M.J. And you can debate that till the cows come home.

Asked who would win that match-up, Bryant replied:

Oh, he would win some. I would win some.

See the interview below.

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