Kobe Bryant tried to sow 'seeds of dissent' between Westbrook & Durant in 2012: Report

Basketball legend Kobe Bryant made his name in NBA for his competitive spirit, commonly recognised as his 'Mamba mentality.' During his heyday, Bryant was well-kwn for his trash talk during games, where he frequently tried to get into heads of his opponents to gain a tactical advant. While his on-court trash talks are pretty teworthy, late Los Angeles Lakers reportedly tried to sow a seed of dissent between Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant back in 2012.

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Westbrook and KD: When Kobe tried to sow a seed of dissent between OKC duo

ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski revealed in his recent podcast that Kobe Bryant tried to instigate a clash between -n OKC Thunder duo, Westbrook and Durant, by urging former that he should be one winning scoring titles over his Thunder teammate. This is during 2012 London Olympics, season after Kobe and Lakers were kcked out by Thunder in second round of NBA playoffs. Kevin Durant became scoring champion after finishing regular season with an aver of 28 points per game. 

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"In 2012, what I remember with Kobe was he spent a lot of – or he spent some of that – Olympics with Russell Westbrook telling Russ, "You kw, you should be winning scoring titles. I don't kw why you're letting Kevin win scoring titles. You should be one winning m." Anything he could do to plant a little seed of dissent with two teammates, it was pretty funny," Wojnarowski said in his podcast. 

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While Lakers were a team clearly on a decline, OKC Thunder were one of hottest teams in NBA during early 2010s. After kcking out Lakers during playoffs in 2012, Thunder made it all way to Finals before losing to Miami Heat. Thunder's rise in league ended without a championship as James Harden was traded to Houston Rockets very next season while Kevin Durant joined  Golden State Warriors as a free nt in 2016.

By time, Durant and Westbrook moved away, Kobe Bryant had already retired from NBA. Westbrook was last of Thunder's deadly trio to leave franchise; he joined Rockets at start of 2019-20 season. 

As for Bryant's prediction for Russell Westbrook, 31-year-old went onto become scoring champion twice (2015 & 2017). His 2017 run is, so far, best of his career, where he snatched scoring title on back of a 30-point triple-double season. Meanwhile, Durant won four scoring titles, all coming with Thunder.  

Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter Gianna and seven ors, passed away in January 2020 after being involved in a tragic helicopter crash near Calabasas, California. 

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(Im Credits: Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant Instagram)