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Sue Bird reveals her quintisential Olympic Kobe Bryant experience

Team USA basketball star Sue Bird got a healthy a dose of Mamba Mentality at the Olympics during an epic kickback with Kobe Bryant.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SUE BIRD: My experience with Kobe at the Olympics is really, looking back now, it was a glimpse into his interest in women's basketball. Just his mindset on always asking questions. Like, curious about things, which you don't always get from people. As you know, we take a break in our WNBA season, and he was quick to be like, "oh, y'all are in third. I think you've got a tough stretch coming out of the Olympic break." And I was like, "oh, dang, you know my schedule?"

And really my favorite story that came out of that experience was, and this speaks more so to the Mamba Mentality that obviously we've all become very familiar with. And one night, we were just playing cards. There was four of us playing spades, and he came in and there was a little wine involved, and he got very competitive with drinking the wine. And it was like he didn't want to be behind anybody on these glasses. And we were like Kobe, you know, we got practice tomorrow, we're just sipping. Nope. He was like, into this wine. He's-- "I've had three glasses, you've only had one." And I was like, "that's because I'm small. I got practice tomorrow."

But simultaneously, in that same moment-- literally, this was all happening at the same time-- he kind of opened up a newspaper, he was flipping through. And the Lakers-- this was 2008, so the Lakers had just lost to the Celtics in the playoffs, in the Finals, and in a very, you know, gut-wrenching way. If you remember, they blew a lead, it was not good. And there was a picture of Paul Pierce, and like, celebrating the Celtics win. And he literally ripped out this picture of Paul Pierce, and he folded it up, and he put it in his pocket, and he was like, "it's motivation for next year." But like, dead-ass serious. And we were like OK, OK.

And again, it was just this glimpse into like, how he worked, how he functioned. And we all know about it now, but in 2008, that was kind of like, oh, this is who Kobe Bryant is. So I'm very thankful to have had those moments with him and to have learned from him.