When Kobe Bryant retired from the NBA in 2016, the question was how he would transition into life without the everyday grind of being a basketball player.

After all, Kobe is the modern comparison for Michael Jordan right down to the intangibles and the competitiveness, and Jordan struggled so much with retirement that he came back two different times as a player.

While Bryant still remains a vocal and outspoken presence when it comes to the NBA, he seems to be totally at peace with his current status. In an ESPN interview alongside Tracy McGrady and Rachel Nichols, Bryant was insistent that the love for playing had left him, and that he would not even want to return to game action.

Still, it is hard for Kobe to fathom his new role as a more creative mind. Bryant currently runs his own multimedia studio called Granity Studios. The former Laker legend and his team even won an Academy Award last year for his animated short film entitled “Dear Basketball,” which was based off a poem he wrote.

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Kobe spoke about the changes in his life with Adam Caparell of Complex Sports:

“The thing about us athletes is you gotta find what you're passionate about besides the sport that you're playing in, what comes next, you know what I'm saying?” says Bryant. “I think it's different for every athlete, but if you would have told 20-year-old Kobe this is what I'd be doing I'd have been like, ‘Dude, you're absolutely crazy, you're out of your mind.'”

Bryant is releasing a young-adult fiction novel entitled The Wizenard Series: Training Camp on March 19.