Coach K on Kobe and LeBron

Dime’s Andrew Katz has a good interview with Mike Krzyzewski. K shares two new anecdotes from the three years he spent coaching the Redeem Team:

Dime: Kobe is the one guy people never seem to be able to completely figure out. What was your experience like with him?
Coach K: With Kobe, it wasn’t just in Beijing. I remember the very first day, he came early and (assistant coach) Johnny Dawkins went to go work him out just before eight in the morning. We had a coaches meeting at 10:30 and Johnny never showed. Then our coaches meeting is over and it’s noon, we break the meeting and I finally see Johnny. I ask him, “What happened?” And he said, “Coach he just worked out for four hours and he could’ve worked out for four more hours. He didn’t take breaks. I haven’t seen anything like it.”

Dime: Who grew the most during your time together?
Coach K: LeBron James grew more than any other player during the three-year period. I loved my association with LeBron James. This year he’s having one of the great years in the history of the NBA. I think a lot of that is because of the situations he put himself in. In developing my relationship with LeBron, the second summer before we started to have practice, I flew to Akron to meet with him. I just wanted to be part of a little event he was doing. We talked about the team. I asked him, “What do you think about our team?” He said, “Coach, I love our team. It’s going to be great playing with all of those guys. I’m going to be able to learn from those guys.” I said, “Well, give me an example.” He said, “Well, J-Kidd.” I asked, “What about him?” LeBron said, “He’s the best passer. I think I’m a good passer, but he’s the best. I want to learn what he sees. I want to find out if I can see the things he does and how he goes about learning that.” So for that summer and the next summer, wherever you saw Jason Kidd, you saw LeBron.