Getty Image
The stories from back in the day about NBA Hall of Famers like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kobe Bryant are the stuff of legends.
Today’s NBA stars don’t produce anything close to the tales of competitiveness seen by the likes those guys.
Stuff like Larry Bird calling his shot, Kobe getting his nose broken by Dwyane Wade… and loving it, Michael Jordan doing, well, anything. The stories just never end.
Former Los Angeles Lakers Head Athletic Trainer Gary Vitti recently added to the history books during an appearance on the Legends of Sport podcast.
On the show to promote his new book 32 years of Titles & Tears from the Best Seat In The House: What I Learned About Happiness, Leadership, & Greatness, Vitti discussed numerous tales from his days with the Lakers including plane rides with Chick Hearn, Pat Riley’s 12+2+1 formula, the personal pain and trauma behind Magic Johnson’s HIV diagnosis, getting caught between Kobe and Shaq, the importance of the Lakers 1985 championship, plus some stories about Kobe Bryant’s insane work ethic – including being water boarded by Navy SEALs.
That’s right.
Vitti explained to host Andrew D. Bernstein, “Yeah he was hanging out with a bunch of Navy SEALs and he wanted to see what all the hullabaloo was about so he said, ‘Why don’t you guys waterboard me?’
“So there’s certain things about him that make him very, very special – the hard work, the smart work, yes, the talent, but what he did with the talent, the toughness, the mental toughness, he was very, very special.”
One of the other stories Vitti told about Kobe also demonstrated how his unique mind worked when Bryant was conviced that he could get out of the “reverse bear trap” from the Saw movies.
“We’re on a plane… so I had never seen a Saw movie or heard of the Saw movies. And so we’re on the plane and here comes Kobe back with a DVD to me. He goes, ‘Dude, you gotta watch this.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ He goes, ‘It’s a movie called Saw and I can do it. I know I could, if I had to do it, I could do it.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He goes, ‘You’ll see. You’ll see.’ And then he looked at me and said, ‘Reverse bear trap.’
“Okay, I don’t know what that means. So I pop the DVD in and I’m watching this sick movie and what the reverse bear trap is, without going into what the whole movie, the premise of the movie, but there’s this scene with this thing that’s called the reverse bear trap…So reverse bear trap, instead of the clamps closing, they open. But the way they open is you have this thing on your head. And the clamps are in your mouth, one on the upper jaw and one on the lower jaw. And this thing is locked on your head, you can’t get it off unless you have a key to the lock. And the key to the lock has been surgically embedded behind your eyeball.
“So the only thing in the room is the guy with the reverse bear trap and a scalpel. And he has to cut his eye out to get the key to take the lock off so the thing will come off his head. If he doesn’t, then when the timer goes off, the reverse bear trap is released and it basically tears his skull apart. And [Kobe] is looking at me saying, ‘I can do it. I can do it.’ And you know what, I believe him.”
The Mamba is not normal, folks… lucky us.
[protected-iframe id=”5a3e8ddc44350bfcc5276fde8740f4e4-97886205-92827192″ info=”https://www.listennotes.com/embedded/e/7537511bb808463faaf315359ce1a459/” width=”100%” height=”170px” frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]