By most indications, next season should be the last of Kobe Bryant’s remarkable NBA career.
Bryant, turning 37 this summer, won’t completely rule out playing beyond the 2015-16 campaign.
The Los Angeles Lakers owe Bean a League-high $25 million next year, and Kobe says he has yet to make up his mind when exactly he’ll hang up his Nikes.
Per ESPN:
“You gotta retire sometime,” he said. “I’m not Benjamin Button, man. […] At the end of the season, if I feel like going through this again and doing it all over again, I will. If I feel like, I don’t, I won’t,” he said. “I won’t make a big deal about it or whatever. I’ll be ready to move on. I’ll be ready to do something else.”
“I’ll be ready to take on that challenge and try to show athletes, listen, we are more than this. I think that’s the challenge that I’m ready to take on too. It’s like, we can do more than play basketball. We can do more than simply sit here and be puppets for brands and for an industry and this, that and the other. We can build our own s–t. When that time comes, I’ll be ready to do that.”
What will a retired Kobe Bryant do? […] “Work,” he said. “I love the concept of storytelling. I love inspiring. I love trying to help people reach their full potential … I think there’s a myriad of businesses where storytelling can then connect to because it’s all centered around that … It’s all storytelling.”
