Q&A: Rip Hamilton on Kobe Bryant, his high school friend and rival
Former Pistons All-Star Richard Hamilton reflects on his early years around Kobe Bryant.
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13 min read
Kobe Bryant and Richard "Rip" Hamilton will be forever linked. The two of them met in high school and struck up both a friendship and a rivalry, the former of which endures to this day and the latter of which was rekindled most famously in the 2004 NBA Finals between the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers. With only four games left in Bryant's career, Hamilton, now an analyst for CBS Sports, looked back.
The following Q&A has been lightly edited and condensed.
Do you remember the first time you ever encountered Kobe?
It was funny because when I was in high school, I really thought I was really, really good. And I remember my 11th grade year, at the beginning off my junior year, my high school coach [Jim "Scoogie" Smith] was like, "You know what, you think you're the s---, but I'm going to let you know this now: There's a kid that's right down the road that everybody's saying is the best guard in the country." And I'm like, "Yeah, right. There's nobody better than me." Because I never made it out of Coatesville, I never played anywhere outside of Coatesville. Coatesville is 11,000 people. So I never got the opportunity to see anything else other than the players that were in that three-mile radius.
We end up playing them that year in a regular-season game. And I can never forget it: I looked down at the other end of the court and I was 6-6 at the time, that was tall for a person from a small town. I looked at the other end and I said, "Oh, man, the kid on the other end, man, he's 6-6, too." I was about 175, 180. I was like, "Well, damn, he got me by probably about a good 15, 20 pounds." And in my mind I'm saying, "He still can't outplay me. He's still not as good as me." This was before the ball was thrown up.
We both jumped tip, we were both the biggest guys on the team. First shot, he came down, he crossed over and hit a 3-pointer and I'm like, "Aww, man, this is what Scoogie was talking about." Because you notice if a guy can play on the first possession. And right then and there, I realized that I had my work cut out for me.
Did you get more amped every time you played against him?
We played against each other a few times in high school in regular-season games because we were actually in the same district. We also met up in the district finals too at the Palestra. And also we played on the same AAU team, too. So our relationship was awesome. The times we spent in the summertime traveling to different AAU games and things like that, that was the time that we pretty much trash talked among each other. Because it was like, "All right, you know what, yeah you beat me our 11th-grade year in the regular season, all right. Wait till next year, Kob'. We gonna dominate you. You don't have a team. The only person on your team is you." Which, that's all he had on his team. And everybody else on my team I pretty much grew up with from straight out of diapers, and I knew the work that they put in.
He would always come back with, "Yeah, y'all would never beat us. We're going to win the state championship next year." We always had a back-and-forth battle, especially in the summertime because that was the time when we were roommates in the hotel rooms and we were competing against all these other teams.
What were those games like when you faced him in high school?
They were war. Listen, when they threw the ball up, there was not one time that crossed my mind that that's my buddy, I'm going to take it easy, we're going to laugh and joke. It was like, I'm trying to rip your head off, you're going to try to rip my head off. And that was the game. We didn't shake hands. We didn't laugh and joke. No, uh-uh. And it was great for me, especially that early in my career, because me being around him and playing against him, it helped me for my career to always have that killer instinct. And he always used to say the one time you take your foot off the gas, that's giving somebody else confidence that they think they can be on the same floor as you. So you've always gotta have your foot down on the gas.
What are your best memories from traveling around with him?
It was fun for both of us. We were the same height, we both played the same position and we were both from Pennsylvania. And we weren't city kids. Coatesville is a suburb of Philadelphia and Lower Merion is a suburb of Philadelphia also. A lot of times when you're not a city kid, you gotta pretty much go earn your respect because the people of Philadelphia are going to think the best basketball talent is in the city, not the state of Pennsylvania, but in the city. Same thing with New York City, same thing with Chicago, the same thing with all these other major cities.
It was good for us because I never let him know that he got the best of me. He never let me know that I got the best of him in a game or a play or whatever. I can remember one time, I think we were at the McDonald's All-American Game. The whole time, we'd never played one-on-one before. We used to always talk trash. So one day after practice we were like, "Screw it, let's play then. One-on-one. Let's do it. You know what I mean? I'm tired of hearing your mouth, you're tired of hearing my mouth, we're going to see who's the better player right now."
I remember my dad brings the camcorder over there ‘cause he was going to film the whole thing, and the first play, he fouled me. I'm like, "Foul!" He's like, "No, that wasn't no foul." So we sat there arguing for 10, 15 minutes. That's how far the game went. After we argued, nobody wanted to give the other guy the ball on the offensive end, so we both end up walking off the court pissed off at each other. We never finished the game of one-on-one.
I had a question written down: "Was he the same sort of competitor and trash talker back then?" I guess so.
By far. And that was the thing that impressed me most about him. Because I thought I was a very confident individual. But when I met him, oh he took confidence to a whole new, different level. Because when you're high school kids, your level of confidence at the high-school level is phenomenal, it's crazy, it's out of this world. But if I'm in high school, I'd never say, "I can't wait to compete against Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen or Penny Hardaway." Because that's just so far-fetched, these guys are the best at the guard position in the world. And Kob' thought he was one of them back in high school. He really thought he was one of them back then.
I can remember when I was in college ‘cause we used to always talk. And before I went to the NBA, I called him and I was like, "Hey, you know what Kob', screw the high school state championship, I got a college championship now." At the time, he hadn't won an NBA championship. And he was like, "Rip, don't worry, trust me, I'm going to win back-to-back championships coming up." I'm like, "Yeah, right, there's no way." But that's where his confidence was. His confidence was out of this world.
I was like, "In one sentence, give me some advice on what to expect or what should I do when I come to the NBA. Because I'm thinking about coming to it next year." He said, "Rip, when you come, hit first. I know it's veterans here and I know they're going to look at you as a rookie and things like that, but you gotta come and hit first. When that ball is thrown up, everybody's a man. You're either going to be the hunter or the one getting hunted." And I took that to heart.
That confidence of his could rub some people the wrong way. How was it perceived back then?
I never looked at it as being cocky. Never, not one time. I thought he was a little crazy, but he took confidence to a whole different level. And I respect that so much because we're practicing together, we're playing games together. At the time we were No. 1 and No. 2 in the state of Pennsylvania from a rankings standpoint, but he was always looked at as the No. 1 kid in the country. I was like top-10 in the country but he was the No. 1 player. So for me it was like, all right, I need a push. How do you get that push from guys that are not as good as you? But when you got a guy that's looked at as the No. 1 player in the country and you play the same position, you're continuously learning the game and you're learning how to approach the game.
What was it about your relationship that allowed it to sustain?
The biggest thing was that we respected each other. That's huge. We respected each other. We respected each other's work ethic. My dad was around, his dad was around traveling from AAU game to AAU game. It was a thing where we understood each other. People used to say, "Kob' is cocky, arrogant, he has no friends." No, no, no. Kob' is one of the best dudes I know. To this day. But I also understand the process to get to where you want to get to.
When we were kids, when we were 16 years old and we're traveling to AAU events and I'd say to him, "Hey Kob', look, after the game, let's go to the mall and hang out." And he'll say, "Man, Rip, I would, but I gotta go back to the room and watch game film and ice my knees." And I'm looking at him like, "Huh?"
Like, we're kids, man. Let's go have fun. I think it was right out the womb or something, I don't know what it was, but he's been locked in to being successful and being the best since we were 16 years old. So anything I see, anything I read, any time I look at his determination in his face, whatever, I tell people, "That's not fake. That's for real."
I've never heard of a 16-year-old back then icing his knees.
Never. At that time, you were like, "Ice? What?" But he was locked in. He wanted to be the best. So when you're around that, now you see what greatness is. You're 16 and you're like, man, I don't need to ice, I don't need to watch film. What is film? But you learn and you pick up little stuff like that and that's what's awesome about having a great friend, especially at the same position as you.
Was there something he had to prove because he was the son of a pro and from a rich area?
It's funny that you say that because where I come from in Coatesville, Pennylsvania. [It's] hard-nosed. It's the hood. It is what it is. There's poverty everywhere where I'm from. All my friends, we all grew up together and we struggled together. So when you get an opportunity, when my coach was like, "We're going to play against this guy from Lower Merion," I'm thinking, "Oh, he's a silver-spoon type of dude. I'm not going to let a silver-spoon type of dude beat me in anything."
I felt like our struggle was a lot worse than his struggle. He had it easy, you know? But when I competed against him and I played against him, it was like he came from the same struggle as I came from. And he wanted it just as bad as me. So it kind of confused me a little bit because it doesn't happen. When people come from a well-balanced background and parents are pretty successful, sometimes they lack toughness. Kob' never did. Kob' was, other than Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson, probably the toughest guy I've played against or seen.
On the 2004 Finals, Kobe said, "It still eats at me. Absolutely does. I'm upset that I gave Richard Hamilton something to brag about. Up until that point, he never beat me. That just kills me." How much did it mean to you to have that on him?
I loved it. If there is anything I love in my life other than my wife and kids and my family and everything like that, I loved getting the opportunity to beat him at the highest level. There's nothing higher than the NBA Finals. For me, I used to tell Ben [Wallace] and Chauncey [Billups] and them, "Dudes, come on, man, let's make sure we come correct because I can't go home thinking he beat me in high school and he beat me in the NBA."
When I had that one conversation with him, I was like, "You can have the district championship and the state championship because I got a college championship." I kind of one-upped him at that time. He was like, "OK, s---, don't worry about it, Rip. I'm going to go ahead and win me a couple of NBA championships. Nobody cares about a college championship once you win an NBA championship." So I'm like, "Yeah, the NBA championship is the mecca of trophies, it is what it is." So when I got to the league and he won, he was like, "All right, I told you, now what you got to say? You have that college championship, I didn't even play college basketball so it really doesn't mean a whole lot to me like it would mean to you."
When we matched up in the Finals, man, it was one of the greatest experiences ever. Because I can remember in high school, the person who wrote the story when we played each other in the Palestra, he said, "If you don't watch these two kids play right now, the next time you'll get an opportunity is at the professional level or maybe in the NBA Finals." And we were 17 years old at that time. So to get to that level and beat him, oh my goodness. It was the best.
Even when I left Detroit, my cousin, Michael Hamilton, who was the point guard of our AAU team when we were in high school -- I was on my way out of Detroit, Detroit was breaking up at the time and L.A. was still winning after the Shaq breakup -- and one of my friends was sitting on the floor and Michael said, "Hey Kob', for old times' sake, you gotta get Rip to L.A. so you guys can play together like you played in high school." And Kob' looked at him and said, "Hey Mike, I would never ever put Rip on my team until I can make up for the time he beat me when Detroit played against the Lakers in the Finals. I hope he gets on a contender so we can match up again in the Finals. This time it's going to be a different outcome." So I know it hurt him.
