Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant says he tried to write a tribute on social media to Kobe Bryant but felt he could not do justice to the impact the former Lakers star had on and off the basketball court.
Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other passengers all died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, west of Los Angeles, on Sunday, prompting tributes from the biggest names across the sporting world.
But Durant says he struggled to put into words how much Bryant meant to him and believes the best way to honour his legacy is for the NBA’s players to channel his Mamba mentality by giving everything they’ve got for the rest of the season.
Asked how best to honour Kobe, Durant said on Tuesday: ‘I mean… anything. It’s so hard to say right now. Just every basketball player go out there and play as hard as they can every single night to honour Kobe, I think that would do.
‘I tried to think about what I would say, what I would write, but nothing was big enough, you know? And that’s how I feel about everything when it comes to Kobe Bryant.
‘The mark he left on the earth feels like nothing will ever be big enough to truly honour Kobe Bryant but how we approach every day, life, as people, me as a disciple, who studied him, learned from him.
‘I think it’s my justice to go out there and try to be the best that I can be every single day. And not just in basketball, just in everything. I feel like everybody who loved Kobe is going to take that approach in their lives.’
He continued: ‘As a young basketball player he was somebody you looked up to. As a high-schooler, not knowing much outside of just playing basketball, and then getting to the league and getting to know the person and the man and everything that comes with it with Kobe Bryant, he was just a joy to be around.
‘You would display every emotion when you were around him. As a competitor you hated playing against him, as somebody that admired him you just loved being in his presence. As a young hooper, he meant the world to us.
‘But just having that time and those moments with Kobe, it was always about pressing forward and I think at this time it’s so hard to do so just with the amount of impact he had on all of us. It’s hard to keep going right now. But as a basketball community, as a world as a whole, we’re all just mourning and sticking together.’
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