THE ANGELS – Read Tyronn kept all the framed photos I had of him and Kobe Bryant home and the current LA Clippers coach still can’t furnish his office with the precious moments he shared with his old friend.
Almost a year after Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020, Lue is still dealing with the death of his former Los Angeles Lakers teammate. It’s still painful to watch Bryant’s highlights on TV or even answer questions from Kawhi Leonard and Paul George about what Bryant was like.
Lue spoke to a small group of reporters about Bryant’s death on Saturday and revealed that he has tried to cope by blocking as much as possible. But Lue said he wants to try to get ahead by doing things like posting pictures of himself and Bryant.
“I just hope I’m trying to get over it,” Lue said. ‘I really can’t handle death very well. I always try to forget. Especially for me it is something difficult. [con] someone I was so close to … I took all the pictures in my room, in my house, I don’t have them in my office “.
Lue said that when he went to the head coach’s office at the Clippers’ Playa Vista facility, his assistant and others asked him about the set and if he wanted a photo of him and Bryant. Lue said politely no.
“I have to get over it because [es] A great guy, 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 did you do with Kobe?” You want them to ask him those questions so he can go on living no matter what he’s going to do. ‘
When Bryant and his daughter Gianna died last year, the Clippers were in Orlando, Florida, to play the Magic. Lue, then assistant staff coach at Doc Rivers, he said woke up from his routine nap on the matchday to find countless missed text messages and calls on his cell phone. Seven of the missed calls were also from an assistant coach 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 television and it was on all the news channels and you just saw the fire, the smoke, it just showed images of that [accidente de helicóptero]”Said Lue.” And on TMZ Sports they talked about it and I just broke down. That was hard to understand, hard to see. “
Rivers said that at one point during the match against the Magic, he turned to look at Lue on the couch and saw his assistant ‘cry’.
“It’s difficult even to this day,” said Lue. “If you watch and only watch videos that show stuff from old games or commercials, it’s hard for me to watch.”
Lue also said her two stars, Leonard and George, often ask about Bryant. Leonard and George grew up in Southern California and looked up to Bryant. The two All-Stars got to know Bryant as professionals and tried to gain as much knowledge as possible from the former Lakers great.
Lue said he hadn’t talked about his time with Bryant or the things he learned from the shooting guard while he was head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. But this season, Lue found himself 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 this,” said Lue. “They always ask those questions all the time. They just want to know a lot about him. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about it, but it’s good that those guys respect him and admire what Kobe has done as a player, as a person and as a player. . “entrepreneur.”
Lue spent his first three NBA seasons playing with the Lakers from 1998 to 2001 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 that series without you,’ Lue recalled. “He said, ‘Because I started calling exhausted [Allen] Iverson, and the work you did with him, really took a lot of pressure off me. So man, you meant a lot to this championship. ‘
“It really meant a lot whether he was lying or not,” Lue said.
Lue said he will have to be honest with himself about dealing with Bryant’s loss rather than trying to bury him. One step forward is to restore those photos.
“I’m going to try,” said Lue. “He will 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 it would be difficult.”
“But there has got to come a point where he can get over that, keep celebrating his life, and what it has meant to me and so many other people.”