Kyrie Irving on Kobe Bryant: ‘He had peers looking up to him’

Kyrie Irving made his return to game action on Wednesday after the Nets point guard had to leave Madison Square Garden prior to Brooklyn’s game against the New York Knicks on Sunday. He, like everyone else, had found out about the news of Kobe Bryant’s passing, along with Bryant’s daughter, Gianna, and others aboard the helicopter that crashed in Los Angeles County.

The tragedy has been hard on everyone in the basketball world, but it’s been particularly difficult for Irving, given the Los Angeles Lakers legend was the Brooklyn point guard’s mentor.

Following the Nets’ 125-115 win over the Pistons, Irving made his first public comments about Bryant. He expanded on their relationship with reporters shortly after:

I had that type of mentorship relationship with him where I was able to ask him almost anything, no matter how nervous I was or how fearful I was. He just was easy to approach with those types of questions about what goes on in a day-in and day-out basis of chasing something that’s bigger than yourself.

Bryant also helped give Irving direction when he “needed it most”:

He had his company, he had his own belief system, he had his own principles that he lived by. Excuse my language, he didn’t give a [expletive] what anyone said.

Bryant’s determination and direction drew Irving to him. Though the point guard was far from the only one who was fixated on the way the Laker legend conducted himself:

I think he always made a huge impact while he was playing, and we always knew that he was focused on one goal, and that was getting that gold trophy, getting a ring, making sure that he crushed every record, he crushed every opponent. He had peers looking up to him. It’s not common when you’re playing against somebody and they’re looking up to you the way we all looked up to him while we’re out there on the court.

"It was what he helped you see inside yourself. Always." pic.twitter.com/4ieam3dXqk

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) January 30, 2020