Kobe Bryant, who has helped the Lakers win five NBA championships over a 20-year career spent entirely in Los Angeles, announced Sunday on The Players’ Tribune website that he will retire after this season, writing that “this season is all I have left to give.”
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In a first-person story titled “Dear Basketball,” the 37-year-old wrote in the form of a poem that the sport “gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream/And I’ll always love you for it.”
“But I can’t love you obsessively for much longer,” Bryant wrote. “This season is all I have left to give. My heart can take the pounding. My mind can handle the grind but my body knows it’s time to say goodbye.
“And that’s OK. I’m ready to let you go.”
Bryant addressed the media after Sunday’s 107-103 loss to the Indiana Pacers, saying that he made his decision “a while” ago.
“I’ve known for a while,” Bryant said. “A decision like this, you can’t make that decision based on outside circumstances. It has to be an internal decision, and finally I’ve decided to accept that I can’t actually do this anymore, and I’m OK with that.
“It takes a weight off my shoulders and everybody else’s.”
Lakers coach Byron Scott, speaking before Sunday’s game, emphasized that the star guard’s “purpose is to finish out this season and play.”
“I think he still loves this game,” Scott told reporters. “He still has a passion for it. He’s still a competitive young man.”
