Kobe Bryant Makes It Clear That He's Never Coming Back To Basketball

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Kobe Bryant Answers The Question Everyone’s Been Asking

There have been rumors literally everywhere that Kobe Bryant is returning to basketball one way or another–from thoughts that the former Lakers star is going to return to the team to play with LeBron James to rumors that he’s joining Ice Cube’s BIG3 league, the ideas were endless.

His wife Vanessa Bryant previously commented on the conversation explaining, “Kobe will not be coming out of retirement to play again.” But now, we have a definitive answer from the man himself.

In an effort to shut down any and all rumors of him returning to play basketball just two years after his retirement, he sat down for an interview on the Rich Eisen Show to reveal that he will “never come back to the game.” He spoke very bluntly on the topic during his interview, making sure everyone gets the idea. “I’m here to show people we (athletes) can do much more than that,” he said.

When explaining why he doesn’t plan on ever returning to the NBA, Bryant said: “When I retired, everybody was saying, ‘He’s too competitive. He’s not going to know what to do with himself. He’s going to have to come back.’ I took that as a personal challenge of them thinking I’m this one-dimensional person. That all I know is to dribble the ball, shoot the ball, play basketball and compete at that level.”

So there you have it. Kobe has more to prove than returning back to basketball right after he left–and he’s got good reason.

Bryant has already won an Emmy since leaving the court, so it seems like he’s doing just fine without dribbling the ball these days.