Newly acquired forward Antawn Jamison has shifted locker rooms at Staples Center moving from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Los Angeles Clippers this offseason, all to give himself a better chance to contend for a championship, but he's still not ready to count off his former team just yet.
"I would never count Kobe Bryant out of anything," Jamison said Friday in a radio interview on ESPN 710 in Los Angeles. "I've played with some special players. Gilbert Arenas when he was [in Washington D.C], at the top of his game, LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal [in Cleveland]. I've played with a lot but never played with an individual player who had the type of mindset, the drive that he has. If [Bryant] says he's going to win a sixth ring, believe me, he's going to do everything possible to get that ring.
"Of course, on the outside looking in you could say, well, that might not happen this year or whatever with him coming off the injury and the Lakers trying to get things together. But I mean, that guy, he's going to do everything possible to get that sixth ring."
Jamison had high hopes to win a championship with the Lakers, but there were numerous issues including his benching when Mike D'Antoni was hired. During the season he expressed his displeasure, but now understands where D'Antoni was coming and ultimately respects the coach:
"I don't dislike Mike. I obviously respect him as a coach. In my eyes, one of the best offensive-minded coaches in the league. I just think he was put in a tough position, but toward the end of the season, you saw him kind of open up. We started to have a relationship, and I kind of understood where he was coming from."
Jamison also touched on the relationship between Bryant and Dwight Howard, saying he could never truly figure out why the relationship between the two never truly developed on the court.
"It was difficult," he said. "I really believed before we got started that those two could co-exist. But it just didn't work out that way. Both guys are unbelievable basketball players, the best we have in the game right now. But for whatever reason we just couldn't get that relationship as far as them communicating and them trusting each other the way you needed them to trust each other in order for us to win a championship. It just didn't happen that way."
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