Sam Smith

You don't want to do it.

You want to create, you know, maintain independence.

And most everybody did.

And Shaq verbalized that.

I heard it was verbalized to me, too, as well.

as, you know, you're either with me, sort of against me.

And so, you know, I admired Kobe more because he was serious about the game.

You know, Shaq would, as Phil knew too, understood, I'm sure it was frustrating.

He'd sort of spend the season getting in shape.

Came to the playoffs, he could average 40 and 20.

He could have been the best player in history.

He was so physically dominant.

If Shaq took the game seriously, nobody could have competed with him.

Kobe took the game seriously because he wasn't as physically talented.

His hand wasn't as big like Jordan.

He couldn't palm the ball like that and dominate the game.

And so you sort of had to make a distinction.

And I kind of sort of gravitated over toward Kobe's side.

My point would be sort of the history, sort of to appreciate what and who has come before you, what they achieved, how they went about it, and sort of learn from it and respect it.

And, you know, that's kind of what I did.