Of the countless achievements Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant had throughout his career, his successful stint with Team USA's Redeem Team could arguably be up there in terms of utmost significance. Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim witnessed how Kobe changed the culture on the national team, and he singled out how The Black Mamba raised the team's defensive intensity.

In an article by Yahoo Sports' Ben Rohrbach,  Boeheim described how Kobe would influence a team just through his work ethic.

“He doesn’t f— around,” says Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, an assistant under Krzyzewski on the last three Olympic gold medal-winning teams. “He doesn’t care if it’s summer, winter, fall or spring. He does not take any prisoners. That’s what you’re looking for as a coach.

“I don’t know if LeBron would say this, and I’m not going to put words in his mouth,” adds Boeheim, “but I felt Kobe raised the level of everybody, especially on the defensive end. If we had a weakness in 2006, it was on the defensive end. We weren’t committed. In 2007 and 2008, we were much better there, and I think Kobe was responsible for a lot of that.”

Until today, people could still remember the mishap of the 2004 Olympics where a heavily favored team composed of LeBron James, Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan failed to win the gold medal. This failure started a call to revolutionize the American national program by picking out a successful collegiate coach in Mike Krzyzewski to take the helm.

Since then, Team USA has gone on to win every gold medal in the FIBA World Championship/World Cup and in the Olympics.