Kevin Durant nearly ‘choked up’ seeing legends pay homage to Kobe Bryant

The NBA is filled with the greatest basketball players in the world. They compete against each other, but they still want each other to succeed. That was obvious at Kobe Bryant’s jersey retirement ceremony on Monday night.

Legends from the league’s past came to support Bryant on his special night. After the game, Kevin Durant said that made him a bit emotional.

“You see all these guys that paved the way for you, that taught you how to play, basically, that kind of set the table for you. You’ve got nothing but respect and love,” Durant said.

“But to see them come back to support another retired player, another guy getting his jersey retired, it shows that we come out and show love. We compete against each other hard. We talk about this guy vs. that guy, but at the end of the day, man, it’s a small percentage of us in the world and it’s good that we stick together and it’s good that we show love and support for each other. It was just amazing — it almost got me choked up to see so many basketball players out on the court at once supporting one guy. That was incredible.”

This is the true nature of a fraternity. There were legends from nearly every era of the game that came back to see Bryant get his jersey retired.

There were legends like Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar there.

Some of Bryant’s biggest rivals like Shaq and Allen Iverson showed up.

So did former teammates like Caron Butler and Lamar Odom.

Oh, and peep Byron Scott and James Worthy in the background, too. This was a who’s who of NBA legends in the building to support Bryant on Monday night.

That’s inspiring for a player like Durant. He’s already has a Hall of Fame resume put together and will have his jersey retired someday, but as Durant said, it means a lot to have your peers recognize your accomplishments.

NBA players supporting each other means something to him.

Earlier this summer when he was recounting his first moments with the Warriors on the Bill Simmons Podcast, Durant told a story about how disappointed he was in James Worthy for disrespecting his decision to go to Golden State behind his back.

“He was like: ‘Man. Don’t worry about that stuff. People change jobs every single year, every single day. Don’t worry about that. Just go out there and keep working and go win. So I’m like: ‘Man that’s nice’,” Durant said.

“So I came back home that night and my boy Randy (Williams) — I was like: ‘Man. James Worthy was cool. He showed me so much love. I appreciate that. (Randy) was like: ‘Huh? He was talking so bad about you on TV. He was saying Magic wouldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t have done that.’ I was like, yo, stop selling out. Stop selling your brothers out. This is a fraternity. Stop selling us out for NBA TV, Turner Sports, ESPN, stop doing that man and then come in my face talking that nonsense.”

The fraternity isn’t just a group for Durant — there’s a code he lives by. So when he says he almost choked up at the respect players were showing Bryant, it comes from a deep worldview he has.