Every NBA player seems to have a personal Kobe Bryant tale. Every player who had the chance to spend time with the late Lakers star had a deep memory of him, ranging from stories of his fearsome skill on the court to his unwavering pursuit of greatness to getting advice that changed their lives. VicBlends and Hawks star Trae Young posted his on DeepCut.
When asked if he ever looks for inspiration outside of basketball, the 25-year-old responded in the negative. Young spoke of his children as his greatest source of inspiration and recalled how Bryant had taught him a valuable lesson in life.
He remembers seeing the legendary Lakers player at a summer camp, and he said the guidance he got that day stuck with him. Young stated:
“He came in, flew in on his helicopter. We all were sitting down at half-court. He walked in… The moral of the story was, us lions, we need sheep to hunt… There’s place for y’all sheep out here and he was looking at every kid in there and was just basically like, ‘Us lions, we get each other.”
Trae Young talks about what Kobe Bryant told him during camp
Bryant told the campers that if they wanted to grow up to be lions like him, they would have to see their rivals as sheep. Young disclosed that he has lived and built his career with those comments in mind ever since that encounter with the Lakers icon. Following his Hawks draft selection in 2018, the two became mentor and mentee.
Young gained a great deal of knowledge from the Lakers superstar in the few time he spent with him. He discussed his friendship with Bryant in a May 2020 podcast episode on All The Smoke. The 3 time all star said,
“Me and Kobe got to talk pretty frequently, and he just gave me a lot of advice. So two of the three games he went to this season were once when I played in LA, and another when I played in Brooklyn.”
