By now, you’ve probably seen Kobe Bryant's “Levels of Success” videos created as a viral ad campaign to promote Bryant’s “Kobe VII System Supreme” shoes back in late 2011. We thought they were somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Clearly, Kobe Bryant thought differently. According to sources who were a part of the Lakers meeting, Bryant basically tried to sell Howard on a return to the Lakers — probably in his best Don Draper voice — by promising to school him on the Levels of Success.
Via Yahoo Sports:
"You need to learn how it's done first, and I can teach you here," Bryant told Howard during the Lakers' presentation, witnesses in the room described to Yahoo! Sports.
"You have to learn how it's done," Bryant told Howard, witnesses described. "I know how to do it and I've learned from the best – players who have won multiple times over and over."
"Instead of trying to do things your way, just listen and learn and tweak it, so it fits you," Bryant told him.
"You have to learn how it's done," Bryant told Dwight Howard on the way out of the Lakers, or maybe the way back into them.
You can just feel the intensity through the screen. Billionaires such as Richard Branson have had to spend millions to learn Bryant’s teachings. The Lakers are offering to pay Howard over $100 million to learn success at success at success. That has to be a winning argument, right? And no, this isn’t tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, I doubt it’ll work on Howard. You have to know your audience. He may as well have been speaking Italian. Based on what we know about Howard, having Shaq sell him on the possibilities for his movie career probably would have been more effective.
