Phillip Thomas Jr

Kobe Bryant says he would hire a car service to get to road games before the team’s first bus so he could be inside the arena before the crowd arrived and prepare in complete silence, and says he would prepare meticulously for whatever looks the opposing defense was going to give him “If we had a road game, say Miami, a 7:30pm game, I’d still get up early and do weights. I’d have breakfast, get on the bus, go to shootaround, get my shots up, come back to the room, do treatment, ice, stretch. I might watch a movie, I might watch a little extra film.” “Then for the bus to the stadium, we had two buses. The first bus was generally around 4:45pm and the second bus was around 5:30pm. I was generally on the early one, just to get treatment and get shots up, because I liked getting to the arenas early.” “Sometimes I would actually get a car and leave before the first bus because even though the first bus was leaving early, there were still people coming into the stands. I liked getting to arenas when there was nobody in there and you could kind of feel the purity of the place, especially in a road environment.” “As far as how many shots I was trying to get up, it depended on how I was feeling physically and who we were playing. If I was playing the Spurs, I’d work on short-corner shots, mid-elbow shots, those types of shots because those were the shots their defense would give up. If I was playing Memphis and Tony Allen, I’d work on a lot of back-to-the-basket stuff, putting my body on Tony, making sure my footwork was right, making sure I was hiding the ball so he couldn’t swipe it. I’d go through those muscle-memory things. The positions of the shots would vary depending on the opponent.”