Metta World Peace Playing Unlikely Wingman Role for Kobe Bryant Yet Again
LOS ANGELES โ Metta World Peace was 14 years old the first time he stepped on a basketball court with Kobe Bryant.
It was in Providence, Rhode Island, a high school game featuring a pair of transcendent prodigies. World Peace, then a flinty teenager with muffled natural ability, and Bryant, still in the larval stage of becoming his own constellation, would both go on to have two of the most polarizing, memorable careers the NBA has ever seen.
But on that day, all their accomplishments lay unclaimed in the distance.
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World Peace can still recall bits and pieces from their initial meeting: the whispers that Bryant was the next Grant Hill, a hyper-competitive 15-year-old whose mythology as we now know it had yet to weave a single thread. His jump shot was already a razor.
According to World Peace, Bryant fired a 50-point torpedo through his LaSalle Academyโs chest.ย The experience shook World Peaceโs entire perspective and opened his eyes to how talented his competition could really be.
โ[Kobe] kind of motivated me, actually, to continue to get better,โ World Peace told Bleacher Report. โBecause when I played against him, I wasnโt as skilled. I was always tough, but I wasnโt skilled. So, essentially, he had a lot to do with my motivation. If I want to be good and play with guys like this, I have to work on my game.โ
World Peace and Bryant eventually teamed up to win a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers, and after three years apart, that's again where they find themselves today.
That fact is remarkable on its own, considering their age, but what's more compelling is how their relationship has dovetailedโhow they continue to serve each other in ways both obvious and unseen.
The two first became teammates when World Peace signed with the Lakers in 2009, supplying the defending champions with physical snarl and another defensive presence. He was an All-Star, Defensive Player of the Year and third-team All-NBA selection in 2004.
His on-court impact was never a question, but World Peace's mercurial, sometimes-violent behavior prevented him from staying put in one place.
He bounced from the Indiana Pacers to the Sacramento Kings to the Houston Rockets, while Bryant eruptedย in L.A. as his generation's most potent offensive threat. Kobe defeatedย World Peace's Rockets on his way to the title in 2009, and their careers stood on two very different paths.
With World Peace, the Lakers won it all in 2010 but steadily declined from the NBAโs mountaintop over the next three years. They went 143-87 and suffered embarrassing playoff defeats against a few rising squads.
Bryant stuck around through it all, but a pair of season-ending injuries sapped the Lakers of any punch. World Peace signed with the New York Knicks in 2013 after the Lakers waived him. He then spent a year in China. His NBA career was effectively finished before the Lakers invited him to training camp this season.
All that feels so long ago even though it just happened.
It makes this seasonโs reunion between World Peace and Bryant all the more remarkableโdespite the fact that they're reunited under a completely different set of expectations.
The Lakers are now the rebuilding punchline to a joke everyone outside Southern California has waited decades to tell. They have the second-worst record in the NBA. A three-game win-streak aside, the Lakers are struggling through the type of year that'd make George R.R. Martin weep.
Bryant is 37 years old and on the last leg of an otherworldly journey. His true shooting percentage has never dipped lower than where it sits right now. World Peace just turned 36 and resides on a non-guaranteed contract. He hasnโt played a minute in nearly a month but routinely gets shots up on game days to stay ready.
The Lakers are oddly built and all too inexperienced, but the two veterans are still helping each other as much as everโmore off the floor than anything else.
โI just want to free Kobe up to have a really good season,โ World Peace said. โI really donโt want him to have to focus on keeping the young guys focused. Itโs his last season. His last season should be played at a high level, which, heโs playing at a high level. ... Iโm sure he can take on the world, and Iโm sure if he had to take on the challenge of fixing the young guys and go out playing at a high level, he would. So Iโm not saying Iโm doing the job for him. But for me personally, I would like to free him up. I want to see him have a really strong finish to his career.โ
Up until the past few seasons, Bryantโs self-reliance was both unsavory and the stuff of legend. Heโs had great success as an autonomous supernova, and even today he doesnโt need World Peace any more than you or I need DVR or a functioning dishwasher.
But these elements make life more bearable, and theyโre never not appreciated.
The two donโt ever discuss Los Angelesโ struggles or how the Lakers are rebuilding. Instead, as often as they can, they reminisceโmostly about former teammates and how mean they both were, how competitive they remain.
โEverybody on this team loves [Metta],โ Lakers head coach Byron Scott said. โHeโs very professional about the way he approaches his job, and Kobe respects that. And once youโve got his respect, pretty much youโve got the respect of one of the best whoโs ever played.โ
That respect mixed with this seasonโs low stakes translates to a breezy relationship. On Christmas night, the Lakers were heavily outmatched against the Los Angeles Clippers, so Bryant and World Peace detached themselves from another blowout loss by chewing over happier times.
โI was telling Metta on the bench, when Paul [Pierce] was running back down, I said โYou know Metta, Iโm so damn happy we won that 2010 Finals because Iโd be so sick as s--t sitting here right now.โ You know, and he felt the same way,โ Bryant said. โItโs been great, being with Metta. He and I go so far backโฆitโs been great having him around.โ
The losing wonโt stop, and neither guy is getting any younger. But the experience isnโt intolerable either. Both men are satisfied with where theyโre at and where basketball has led them.
Bryant is retiring. World Peace has yet to consider his future as an NBA player, but he is more than secure if this is it.ย Heโs ready for whateverโs next.
โIโm not trying to predict my future right now. For me, itโs all about energy. Spiritual energy. For me, itโs bigger than the game. I just try to always stay in tune with my energy. From a universal standpoint. Just staying connected to things Iโve been through in the past even before I was born,โ he said. โFor me, itโs all bigger than the game of basketball as I evolve as a person, and then I just like to be here with guys that love to play the game of basketball. So itโs pretty cool, being connected to other people.โ
Nostalgia has built an unbreakable bond between World Peace and Bryant. Since that day in a Providence gym, theyโve battled, fought and seemingly orbited each other.
They've spilled champagne and cackled in the shower to celebrate nights theyโll never forget. Two cerebral minds. Two unforgiving bodies. Two champions who've guzzled the NBA's sweetest nectar and now struggle through its harshest reality, the most sobering battle of their professional lives.
But they still have each other. And right now, itโs their unquantifiable connection that makes this troubling season that much easier to swallow.
Statistics courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com.ย All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
