Shannon Brown: Kobe Bryant told me to ‘demolish whoever it is that’s in front of me’

There are few players in the history of the NBA who played with the intensity and sheer will to win that Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant did.

Bryant played with such an edge and seemingly tried to rub it off on his teammates, for better or worse. Shannon Brown — who played two-plus seasons in a bench role with Bryant’s Lakers — said that the five-time champion told him to “demolish” anyone in front of him.

“He’ll just tell me, demolish whoever it is that’s in front of me,” Brown said of Bryant’s message to him, explaining that was all he needed to hear.

The Lakers acquired Brown partway through the 2008-09 season, which opened the door for him, a shooting guard himself, to play behind one of the position’s icons in Bryant.

Brown proved to be a complementary piece for the Lakers in their title runs in 2009 and 2010. Brown played in 21 games for Los Angeles in the 2009 NBA Playoffs and then appeared in every one of the team’s 23 contests in the 2010 NBA Playoffs. He averaged 4.9 points per game in both of those championship runs for the storied Lakers franchise.

Brown didn’t get a lot of the praise or accolades for the Lakers winning back-to-back championships in that span, as Bryant, along with big man Pau Gasol, spearheaded them and put up big numbers for them.

However, it takes more than one or two players to win an NBA title, as basketball is a team sport. Brown’s contributions off the pine were still important to the team’s success, even if his playoff stats as a Laker didn’t jump off the stat sheet.

The former Michigan State University standout won those two rings with Los Angeles, then after the Lakers got eliminated by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Playoffs, his time with them came to an end.

Brown didn’t win another championship during the remainder of his pro career, but he put together multiple solid seasons as a member of the Phoenix Suns after his Lakers stint. He averaged a career-high 11.0 points per game with the Suns in the 2011-12 season.

His time in the NBA spanned nine seasons in total, and playing alongside and learning from a competitor of Bryant’s nature might have played a part in him having a solid career.