Fred VanVleet calls Kobe Bryant the greatest player of all time

Let’s talk about you dropping 38 at the Garden on Kobe. I remember watching it, as an Asian guy and a Knicks fan, and being blown away by what I was seeing. I never thought I’d see an Asian dude cooking Kobe Bryant at Madison Square Garden. And Kobe talked some shit about you before the game, which seemed to kick you into another gear. Jeremy Lin: Yeah, for sure. That’s a great way to describe it. I was already in the zone and had three good games, and I grew up being a Warriors fan in the Bay Area, so we did not like the Lakers and did not like Kobe. And then he extra-gassed me by what he’d said before the game. I felt slighted and disrespected, and all those things put me in a place of, I’m going for it tonight. It was just, if I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m firing it up at the rim. If it doesn’t go in then it doesn’t go in, but it won’t be because I’m not gonna shoot it. -via The Daily Beast / October 5, 2022

“These young kids, their careers are shortening,” Iguodala said. “And it’s a reason — because they’re trying to chew too much off of it before it should be occurring. It’s like an evolution. I had a really good conversation with one of the execs in the league and he says we’ve got to raise the bottom of our league because we’re having too high of a turnover. … It took Kobe Bryant some years to really become Kobe Bryant. … We aren’t letting these kids fail. They’re failing and we’re just criticizing them. We’re writing them off, and then they don’t have an opportunity. We’ve got guys out the league at 21, 22, which is crazy. Right? So I think it’s just letting them develop. Let them go through actual hardships. Let them go through a rookie wall. … We’ve all got to go through it. It’s just a part of the maturation process for our young guys.” -via The Athletic / October 4, 2022

Kristaps Porzingis was dubbed the ‘Unicorn’ by Durant early in his career because he was especially unique, but now there are a few players with the same pedigree following in his footsteps. “Dirk Nowitzki was a superstar and of course he made the style of play much more acceptable by what he was doing and for everyone else after him. I grew up watching him, I grew up watching Pau Gasol and Kobe [Bryant],” Porzingis told NBC Sports Washington. “No matter what my height was, I kind of wanted to play like that and take things from their games. Hopefully, I can do the same for the next generation coming up.” -via NBC Sports / October 3, 2022

Barnes has the two necessary traits that make for a future star: an undeniable charisma and the work ethic to get better. He also has something, that fair or not, most second-year players on established winning teams do not — the burden of having his individual trajectory inextricably tied up with the ceiling of his squad. “He’s just got to keep getting better. He’s young. It’s rough. It’s early. It will happen,” teammate Fred VanVleet said. “It sucks for the fans and it will suck for you guys because nobody knows when it’s going to happen. But we all see the star power. We see the potential. It’ll happen at some point.” -via The Athletic / October 4, 2022

VanVleet is hoping he’s able to say the same thing once he reaches the latter stages of his playing career. “It’s a 12-month season now, year ‘round,” said a noticeably slimmer VanVleet, about to begin his seventh NBA campaign. “Hopefully I can stay on this regimen the rest of my career. “There’s always gonna be new changes and things you have to adjust and adapt to as you try to grow. I’ve had a hell of a run so far, so to continue to try to keep growing is going to be challenging every year but I’m up for it.” -via TSN / September 28, 2022

Michael Grange: I asked VanVleet if his off-season training adjustments included switching to a plant-based diet as has become more common for elite athletes: “No. Not quite. If I can get a percentage of a plant-based company I might.” -via Twitter @michaelgrange / September 28, 2022