Former Lakers Guard Recalls Hilarious Kobe Bryant Practice Tantrums originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Late Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant was infamously a maniac when it came to his regimented approach to game preparation.
His methodology paid off mightily.
The 6-foot-6 swingman out of Philadelphia’s Lower Merion High School spent all 20 of his pro seasons in L.A., driving his Lakers teams to seven NBA Finals and five championships. The 18-time All-Star was twice named Finals MVP in those title runs.
Across 1,346 career regular season contests, Bryant averaged 25.0 points on .447/.329/.837 shooting splits, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists a night. He was also named a 15-time All-NBA honoree and a 12-time All-Defensive Teamer.
Former NBA journeyman combo forward Earl Clark, who hopped around the league and even went to the Western Conference Finals with the Phoenix Suns in 2010 (they lost to Bryant’s Lakers), swears by his L.A. tenure most of all in a fresh conversation with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson on the latter’s Scoop B Podcast, claiming, “I’ll always be a Laker.”
Fascinatingly, Clark unpacked how intense Bryant could get during team practices. Clark was on the team in 2012-13.
“I mean, every day we competed in practice, you know? I was on the White Team with me, [Devin] Ebanks, Jordan Hill… and they are coming off a back-to-back [set of NBA championships in 2009 and ’10] but we didn’t care about that s—, we’re trying to get some minutes so, we’re going at them!” Clark said. “And you know of course Kobe’s gonna go hard EVERY TIME!”
“But it’s a few guys that are tired and tend to take days off. So one time in practice we beat them a few games and we’re talkin’ smack, you know what I’m sayin’?” Clark added. “And he just flipped, bro! He ended practice, flipped the table and told everybody on his team, “We gotta tighten up! We can’t get better like this!” and he just left, you know what I’m sayin’?”
In 59 games for the Lakers that season (36 starts), the 6-foot-10 Louisville product posted career-high averages of 7.3 points on .440/.337/.697 shooting splits, 5.5 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.7 blocks and 0.6 steals a night.
“But it’s a LOT of times when he would just blow up, flip the table and just leave and practice is over, you know what I’m sayin’? That’s the thing that people get misunderstood about Kobe too is like that I’ve never been around Kobe where he’s been like, a super jerk or talk down to his teammates. What he doesn’t like is soft guys.” Clark explained. “He wants to see who the dogs are so when it’s time to win and go out there and fight, he knows who can be out there with him.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.