I didn't want to be regular. I didn't want to be this type of player, how everybody else play. I always try to learn and just be better so I could be different, y'know, instead of being content like a lot of people I've seen were.
I played against Kobe a lot when I was in high school during the summers, even in college, just being that guy in L.A. coming up. He always gave me advice here and there, and even the smallest things stuck with me. I watched every single thing that Kobe did, every game, every move. He made me a student of the game.
I don't try to be nothing I'm not. I'm not flashy. I'm just me.
It's one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day. We all got feelings... all of that.
At the end of the day, the only person to have a better Kobe sneaker game than me is Kobe himself.
I'm sure there's a long list of one-time all-stars, and I don't want to be on it.
You gotta be able to take criticism if you want to be anything close to great. Even if it's not true. You use that as an advantage for yourself. You can use that negative energy and turn that into an energy that drives you to be something more than you thought you could be. That's one thing I did.
Day 1, when I was drafted to the Toronto Raptors, they had this stigma on them: Every guy leaves. Nobody wants to be here. Superstars, nobody wants to play in Canada. From Day 1, my whole mindset and approach to the game, being in Toronto, was I wanted to change that whole narrative to that whole organization.
Every time I shoot a turnaround, I feel like nobody can block it.
