Kobe Bryant was “super proud and super happy” for Kyrie Irving after Irving forced a trade from the Cavaliers last summer.
In a story by the Washington Post‘s Tim Bontemps, Kyrie said he reached out to Kobe “for some clarity” after he found out the Cavs almost traded him to Phoenix.
Column: When Kyrie Irving was told he might be traded to the Suns last June, he did the thing he's come to rely on in such moments: he called Kobe Bryant. How Bryant's influence shaped the defining summer of Irving's basketball life. https://t.co/T7nknj2nUx
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) February 2, 2018
“He was one of the guys that I reached out to,” Irving said after a recent practice here. “Not necessarily to gauge his thoughts on the decision, or to give me the okay, but it was for some clarity and also what the next steps going forward [would be].
Because there was some chance I was going to maybe be in Phoenix, or maybe in situations where the environment hadn’t been winning for a while, and Kobe dealt with that in 2005-06, and that was tough. So I had to ask him, and gauge him about that.
But after the fact, after everything happened, he was just super proud, and super happy.”
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