In a 2016 interview, conducted just months after he hung up his sneakers for the final time, Kobe Bryant was asked about death.
“What’s your relationship with death?” The Ringer’s Micah Peters asked.
“A comfortable one,” Bryant responded. “It’s an understanding. You can’t have life without death. You can’t have light without dark, so it’s an acceptance of that.” However, as one might expect, Bryant related the remainder of his response back to basketball.
“When it came down to whether or not I should retire, it’s really an acceptance of that mortality that all athletes face,” he continued.