Kobe is so driven, I don’t think he will be able to retire on his own terms. His body is just going to have to go out on him before he decides to hang them up. If his body would cooperate, he’d play until he has 50.
Here is what he had to say about retirement via Yahoo.
Kobe Bryant watched on television as Derek Jeter walked off the field at Yankee Stadium for the last time last week. The Los Angeles Lakers guard hopes to eventually walk away just like Jeter did. But he also hopes to delay that day by a couple years.
“The biggest key for anybody in retirement is you always want to retire by choice,” Bryant told Yahoo Sports. “Hopefully, I will be fortunate enough to have that option. You don’t want to see another catastrophic injury or something like that. When you walk away, you want to feel like you walked away on your terms.”
Can he play beyond those two seasons and perhaps be on the floor at 40?
“Whether I do or not, we’ll have to see that two years from now,” Bryant said. “I don’t know, but I could [play longer]. Physically, I don’t see an end to the tunnel.”
Don’t expect Kobe to retire any time soon, even if that means his final years are spent somewhere other than LA.