Celtics Fondly Look Back At Kobe's Career Ahead Of Final Boston Visit
BOSTON (CBS) -- Many of the current Celtics were still in diapers when Kobe Bryant made his NBA debut back in 1996.
On Wednesday, they'll be a part of his final visit to the home of the Lakers' fiercest rivals.
Bryant has received some nice ovations in arenas away from the Staples Center as he makes his way through his 20th and final NBA season. As one of the NBA's all-time prolific scorers, The Black Mamba has grown accustomed to serving as the villain of opposing fan bases throughout his career, making such sendoffs a bit out of the norm for No. 24.
"Yeah, it was just so natural to me for so many years," Bryant said of those boos he would hear on a nightly basis. "It became something that just felt comfortable. It felt a little awkward at first, to be honest with you, to get this praise, but I'm glad they didn't do this many, many years ago, because it's like Kryptonite. It would've taken all my energy and all my strength, because I relied a lot on being the villain. Sometimes to best way to beat the villain is to give him a hug."
Bryant won't be getting any hugs from Celtics fans, a relationship he described as "love-hate." While the Celtics raised their most recent banner thanks to a Finals victory over Bryant and the Lakers in 2008, two years later the Lakers got their revenge in a hard-fought seven games series.
Those wounds may seem fresh for some Celtics fans, but none of the current players on the roster were involved in either of those series. While they've gone up against Bryant on a few different occasions, they know nothing but respect for him.
"I was brainwashed to be a Lakers fan when I was young, so I grew up on Kobe Bryant and he was my favorite player," guard Isaiah Thomas told reporters earlier this week.
"He's the best player to ever play the game of basketball in my era. It's going to be probably a little emotional for him. This is one of the most famous arenas," Thomas said. "It's going to suck to see him go. But, at the same time, if it was the other way around, he wouldn't care if it was your last game, so we gotta try to get the win and don't let him have a big game."
"It was crazy watching Kobe and the things that he accomplished," said Marcus Smart, who was just 3-years-old when Kobe debuted. "He took a beating day in and day out, night after night. It's definitely going to be a fun night Wednesday."
Evan Turner remembers coming into the league with warnings about going up against Bryant, but he quickly found those were a bit overboard.
"He was super nice to me. I had teammates that said, 'When you go out there don't look at him in his eye. Don't talk to him or anything. It's going to give him an edge.' Like he's some type of pit bull or something," Turner explained Tuesday. "They're like, 'Don't look at him in his eyes. Just leave him alone.' Then he came up to me and patted me on my back. He was like, 'How you doing? How's your mom?' I was like, 'She's alright.'"
Celtics fans probably don't feel the same way but may be shocked to find that, unlike other Lakers in the past, the color that represents Boston's basketball team is actually Kobe's favorite.
"It's actually my favorite color. I don't have green clothes. It's tough to pull that off," Bryant told reporters Monday after an L.A. loss in Charlotte. "[Former Lakers guard] Jerry [West] won't even wear green drawers. He and I have talked about this before. He's just allergic to green. It's been my favorite color forever. I'm fine with green."
Bryant told reporters that his family will be accompanying him for Wednesday night's game -- their first trip to Boston.
But they likely won't see any tributes to Kobe playing on the Jumbotron, as Celtics president Danny Ainge told Toucher & Rich a few months ago the team probably won't be honoring a guy who won five rings while wearing yellow and purple. But Celtics players think their fans will send Bryant off the same way many other fan bases have throughout his farewell tour.
"I'm pretty sure everybody will be applauding for Kobe when he's in the building tomorrow, even security," said Avery Bradley.
Turner took a little more of a comical approach to what he expects to happen when Bryant takes the floor Wednesday night.
"[The cheers] will probably be for me -- for real, for real," he joked. "I probably just got done taking off my snaps and people will probably go crazy. So you can say it's for Kobe, but it will probably deep down be for me. So it's the same thing."
Love him or hate him, Kobe Bryant will go down as one of the best scorers to ever play in the NBA. And whether they do so with the boos he's used to or cheers that he's learning to accept, Bryant will have a memorable sendoff in his final game in Boston.
