Kobe Bryant’s reputation was built on relentless standards, but Nick Young says there was another side to those Lakers years that most people never saw.
During an appearance on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, the former Lakers guard looked back on the stretch that began when he joined the team in 2013 and ran through Bryant’s final season in 2016. Young talked about the demanding practices and the pressure that came with sharing a locker room with Bryant, but he also described a surprising tradition the veteran star set up to bring the group together.
“People don’t know, at the beginning of the season, Kobe have like a party for the team to get together. Had a stripper party. Yeah, like a little stripper party,” Young said on the podcast.
Young said Bryant would put the gathering together once training camp started, complete with bottles and entertainment, then quietly step away once the fun began.
“But he taught me a little bit of swag ’cause he had had a party, had the bottles and the girls come, and then he’ll leave,” Young continued.
He described the moment Bryant would make his exit after the teammates had settled in.
“You just won’t see Kobe no more. So we eat, and he’s like, ‘Man, I got y’all a little something something.’
We go upstairs. We see the strippers and stuff.
And then Kobe was like, ‘Y’all have fun,’ and leave out,” he recalled.
Young said he appreciated the gesture immediately.
“I was like, ‘Man, thank you.’ That’s swag though,” Young said.
The story adds a different layer to the way teammates remember Bryant from those late Lakers seasons. Even while he kept the same fierce focus that defined him for 20 years in Los Angeles, Young’s comments paint a picture of a leader who also made room for the group in his own way.
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