Kobe Bryant gave Dwyane Wade a heads-up on his retirement in the Heat’s cold tub
Most of the NBA-watching world found out about Kobe Bryant’s decision to retire from the NBA through a volley of verse published last Sunday night. Dwyane Wade, though? He knew a little bit earlier.
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Let’s back up a bit. When the Los Angeles Lakers visited South Florida to take on the Miami Heat on Tuesday, Nov. 10, Bryant missed the game with a balky back. After the contest, which the Heat won fairly comfortably, cameras captured Wade (who finished with 12 points on 5-for-14 shooting, six assists and a block in 25 minutes) and his son, Zaire, chatting with Kobe on the court following the final buzzer:
From Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press:
“It was a cool moment,” Wade said. “I had an opportunity to speak to Kobe last night and he asked me if the boys were coming. I was like, ‘Nah, school night.’ So he hinted to me that he wanted to see them, so I was able to bring them and have a cool moment.”
Bryant had a message to Wade’s son Zaire in their postgame talk: Shoot the ball.
“I asked him how many times he shot the ball,” Bryant said. “Dwyane said not enough. And I said ‘Are you going to be like Uncle Kobe and shoot a lot more?’ Dwyane said, ‘See, I told you.’ So we had a nice little laugh about that.”
As we found out during Thursday’s TNT broadcast of Miami’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder — a contest in which Wade took over late to score the Heat’s final eight points — there was a bit more to the story of how that postgame chat with young Zaire came to be. Take it away, Rachel Nichols:
Way too long for 140 characters, but here’s the Kobe story Dwyane Wade told me: This was last month, the (cont) https://t.co/zuDIf5y1Zu
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) December 4, 2015
Way too long for 140 characters, but here’s the Kobe story Dwyane Wade told me: This was last month, the night before the Heat hosted the Lakers here in Miami. Wade decided to stop by the arena and get in a soak in the cold tub. He goes through the Heat’s locker room area, back over to the training room, and who is already just sitting there in the tub…Kobe Bryant.
Wade told me in the 13 years he’s played for the Heat, he’s never ever seen Pat Riley let an opposing player into the inner sanctum like that, using the team’s facilities, and that frankly, he was shocked. Of course, that’s the respect that Kobe has earned, and the two old friends had a great, long talk.
At the end of it, Kobe asked Dwyane if his sons were coming to the game the next night. Dwyane said no, as it was a school night, and Kobe said, ‘you know what, bring them, I think it’s going to be my last time here.’ Dwyane brought the boys, they got a lifetime memory after the game taking pictures with Kobe, and the Wade family got a little sneak-preview of Kobe’s retirement announcement before anyone else.
For one thing, how cool was it of Pat Riley to give Kobe — who, as Wade and teammate Chris Bosh recently recounted in a chat with ESPN.com’s Michael Wallace, inspired them and many of the other greats on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team that won gold in Beijing with his legendary work ethic and workout regimen — full run of the AmericanAirlines Arena to work out the night before the game. (Then again, maybe this was just another instance of Riles thinking two steps ahead.)
For another, what a thoughtful thing of Bryant to let longtime foil Wade in on his future-plans leaning so that he could get a chance to check in on the youngbloods. That’s a pretty warm-hearted move for a purportedly cold-blooded snake, and one of many grace notes we’ll hope to hear about as Bryant continues a farewell tour that promises to be (for one reason or another) pretty darn unforgettable.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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