The stories about Kobe Bryant 's relentlessness don't fade even more than six years after his tragic passing. And one of the people who had the chance to witness both the highs and the lows of the Los Angeles Lakers legend up close was their longtime athletic trainer, Gary Vitti.
He recalled the moment that many NBA players consider one of the worst possible injuries — a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Bryant, who was already in the later stage of his legendary career and 34 at the time, tore his Achilles tendon on April 12, 2013, with just over three minutes left in the game against the Golden State Warriors . Sure, it was an important contest for the Lakers, who were fighting for a playoff spot, but considering his age and, quite honestly, the mileage on his body, coming back from that kind of injury seemed extremely complicated. However, Kobe being Kobe, not only did he refuse to hear anything about shutting it down, he actually wanted to keep playing, asking Vitti for help to get back on the court.
"He goes, 'I think it is (Achilles tendon), I reached back there and tried to pull it down.' It doesn't work that way. It might feel that way, but that's not how… I've never heard that before," Vitti said in his recent appearance on "ALL THE SMOKE" podcast.
"That's when he says to me, 'Well, can't we just go back in the locker room, you tape it up and I could finish the game.' I said it doesn't work like that, either…" he pointed out.
During his 32 years as the head athletic trainer for the Purple and Gold, Vitti had seen just about everything. And before Kobe even told him what was going on, Gary already had a clear idea of the situation. Still, what surprised him the most was Bryant's persistence to stay on the court.
Kobe tried pulling down the tear. He tried putting pressure on his heel just to stay upright and help his team win. But there was no way around it. The best Vitti could offer was to let him shoot the free throws, have the Lakers commit a foul and then head straight to the locker room.
Ultimately, even the Black Mamba realized there was nothing else he could do but knock down those two shots and begin the long road to recovery. And that's exactly what he did.
Coming to the free throw line, with a look on his face that clearly showed both pain and frustration, Bryant calmly sank both shots to bring his total to 34 points, and then started walking off the court. But before he left, he gave one final moment that perfectly summed up his mentality.
They had to make their way all the way back to the locker room. Vitti, trying to make things easier, offered him a wheelchair. But Kobe wasn't having it.
"Now we got to go all the way back to the locker room. And, I say to him, 'I can get you a chair, and he looks down at me and he says, 'F— Paul Pierce ,'" the legendary athletics trainer added. "Think of the mentality. You just ruptured your Achilles and you're sending a message to Paul Pierce… Who cares about him?"
It can be recalled that Paul Pierce, one of the fiercest rivals of Bryant and the Lakers during that era, had his famous "wheelchair" moment. That happened in Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals between the Lakers and the Boston Celtics , when Pierce was taken off the court in a wheelchair after an apparent knee injury, only to return minutes later and help Boston secure the win. Later, the story was somewhat debunked, with claims that it wasn't as serious as it looked ("boo-boo" stains), and it seems like Kobe never forgot it.
This is just one of many examples where Bryant's nature came to the surface. He wanted to compete, he wanted the very best, and even in one of the worst moments of his career, his mindset didn't change. Some might call it crazy, even unnecessary, but that was simply how the Black Mamba operated.
Even after suffering one of the toughest injuries in basketball, he wanted to walk off on his own terms, with a message to his longtime rival, showing once again that he was simply built different.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on May 4, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
