LOS ANGELES – Tyronn Read save all the framed photos I had of him and Kobe Bryant at home and the current LA Clippers coach still can’t decorate his office with the precious moments he shared with his old friend.
Nearly a year after Bryant died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020, Lue is still struggling with the death of his former Los Angeles Lakers teammate. Watching Bryant highlights on TV or even answering questions from Kawhi Leonard and Paul George about how Bryant was still painful.
Speaking to a small group of reporters on Saturday, Lue was candid about Bryant’s death and revealed that he has tried to endure blocking as much as he can. But Lue said he wants to try to start moving forward by doing things like putting pictures of him and Bryant.
“I just hope to try to get over it,” Lue said. “I don’t really deal well with death. I always try to forget about it. It’s something that’s hard for me, especially [con] someone I was so close to … I took all the photos in my room, in my house, I don’t have them in my office. “
Lue said that when she moved into the head coach’s office at the Clippers’ facilities in Vista Beach, her assistant and others asked her about the decor and if she wanted a picture of him and Bryant. . Lue politely said no.
“I have to overcome it because [es] a great friend, a great person, you want to be able to celebrate, “Lue said.” You want people to come to your office and say, ‘Oh man, how were you with Kobe?’ You want to be asked these questions so that he can continue living, which he is going to do. “
When Bryant and his daughter Gianna died last year, the Clippers were in Orlando, Florida, to play against the Magic. Lue, then assistant coach of the staff of Rius DocHe said he woke up from his routine nap on game day to find countless text messages and missed calls on his cell phone. Seven of the missed calls were from the assistant coach as well Sam Cassell. Lue called Cassell, who frantically asked if the news was true, that Bryant had died in an accident. Lue was in shock.
“I turned on the TV and it was on all the news stations and you could just see the fire, the smoke, it just showed pictures of this [accidente de helicóptero]”Lue said.” And at TMZ Sports, they were talking about it and I just collapsed. It was hard to understand that, hard to see. “
Rivers said that at one point during the game against the Magic, he turned to look at Lue on the bench and saw his assistant “crying.”
“Even to this day, it’s hard,” Lue said. “When you watch and just watch videos when they show things from old or commercial games, it’s hard for me to see it.”
Lue also said her two stars, Leonard and George, often ask about Bryant. Leonard and George grew up in Southern California, admiring Bryant. The two All-Stars came to know Bryant as professionals and tried to absorb as much knowledge as they could from the former great Lakers.
Lue said he didn’t talk about his time with Bryant or the things he learned from the escort while he was head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. But this season, Lue found herself sharing information about Bryant’s greatness with Leonard and George.
“They always want to know what Kobe was like, what he did, how he worked, how Kobe would react to that,” Lue said. “They always ask these questions all the time. They just want to know a lot about him. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about that, but it’s good that these guys respect him and admire what Kobe has done as a player, as a person and as a player “. businessman. “
Lue spent his first three seasons in the NBA as a player from 1998 to 2001 in the Lakers with Bryant. After the Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Finals (2000-2001), Bryant said something that will stay with Lue for the rest of his life.
“Kobe said,‘ You know, I don’t know if we could have won this series without you, ’” Lue recalled. “He said,” because I was exhausted having to dial in [Allen] Iverson, and the work you did with him really took a lot of the pressure off of me. So, man, you meant a lot to this championship. “
“It really meant a lot to whether he was lying or not,” Lue said.
Lue said he will have to start being honest with himself when facing Bryant’s loss instead of trying to bury him. One step forward is to put these photos back on.
“I’ll try to do that,” Lue said. “He’ll always live through me, through the NBA, through a lot of people. So just try to come to my office and see a picture of me and Kobe I think would be difficult.”
“But there has to be a point where you can get over that, keep celebrating your life and what it has meant to me and to so many other people.”