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Who really said it

Get over yourself! 'Cause it's not about you, man

Spoken by Kobe Bryant 1978–2020 · Los Angeles Lakers guard, five-time NBA champion
Traced to a specific, dated, still-online interview In copyright

Bryant said it in a long-form video interview with Patrick Bet-David, published on the Valuetainment channel on 23 August 2019 — the passage sits about twenty minutes in, inside his answer about the four air balls he shot as an 18-year-old in the 1997 playoffs. Wikiquote’s sourced section carries the full wording and cites that interview and timestamp; the video’s channel, title and publication date all check out.

Last verified 17 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“Get over yourself! 'Cause it's not about you, man” Kobe Bryant, interview with Patrick Bet-David, "Kobe Bryant's Last Great Interview," Valuetainment, 23 August 2019 — via Quotle.info · Verbatim: “Get over yourself! 'Cause it's not about you, man. Like, okay, you feel embarrassed. You are not that important! Get over yourself!”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Valuetainment / Patrick Bet-David (the interview recording); the estate of Kobe Bryant (his spoken words)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Kobe Bryant — Los Angeles Lakers guard, five-time NBA champion. Theme: "Get over yourself! 'Cause it's not about you, man". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Source
Kobe Bryant's Last Great Interview
Format
Video interview with Patrick Bet-David, Valuetainment
Published
23 August 2019, on YouTube
Passage at
Approx. 20:15, per Wikiquote's citation

Get over yourself! ’Cause it’s not about you, man. Like, okay, you feel embarrassed. You are not that important! Get over yourself! Right, like you are worried about how people may perceive you, and like you are walking around and it’s embarrassing because you shot five air balls… Get over yourself. Interview, 2019

Transcribed in Wikiquote’s sourced Quotes section from the Bet-David interview. Note Bryant’s “five air balls” — accounts of the 1997 game against Utah count four, three of them in overtime.

Video interview
Watch the interview at the cited point
Wikiquote: Kobe Bryant, sourced quotes

How we traced it

In copyright

This is a 2019 recorded interview, published far after the 1931 US public-domain cutoff, so nothing here is public domain. The recording is Valuetainment’s; Bryant’s spoken words are his estate’s. Quote the sentence with attribution — do not republish the audio or video.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Real quote, missing receipt

This one is not a fabrication — the words are Bryant’s. The problem is the opposite of the usual: an authentic, precisely locatable line that gets reposted thousands of times with the source sanded off, the clauses reshuffled, and the punctuation invented.

Uncredited reposts and “speech” edits no source

Transcript pages built from motivational re-uploads carry the passage as “You’re not that important. Like, get over yourself” ↗ — credited to Bryant, but with no interview, date, or link that would let a reader check it.

Second-hand write-ups reordered

A widely shared Medium piece renders the answer as “It’s not about you man! You’re not that important. Get over yourself” ↗ — the same thought, the clauses inverted, and again no source named.

Bryant himself detail

He says he shot “five air balls” that night. Accounts of the 1997 game count four, three of them in overtime ↗. A storyteller’s rounding, twenty-two seasons on from the game.

The wording is Bryant’s own, spoken to Patrick Bet-David and published on 23 August 2019 — Wikiquote’s sourced section pins it to that interview and timestamp ↗.

Context

Why he said it

Bet-David asked Bryant how he became mentally strong enough to shrug off critics. Bryant reached for the worst night of his rookie year: the 1997 Western Conference semifinals against the Utah Jazz, where the 18-year-old missed a shot to win it and then put up air balls in overtime as the Lakers lost 98–93 and went home. Most players would frame that as a wound. Bryant framed it as a category error.

His point was not that embarrassment is survivable — it was that embarrassment is self-important. If you are agonising over how a room reads you, you have made yourself the subject of a story that is actually about the work. Hence the shove: get over yourself, because it isn’t about you.

You are not that important!

The game behind the quote

The Lakers lost the 1997 Western Conference semifinals to Utah in five games. Contemporary accounts count four air balls from Bryant — three of them in overtime. He was eighteen, and he later called the night “an early turning point” in learning to handle scrutiny and self-doubt.

In the 2019 interview Bryant says “five air balls,” not four. It is a small slip in a story he had told for twenty years, and worth noting only because the pages that repost the quote never note anything at all.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Humility Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Kobe Bryant — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Carries the full passage in its sourced Quotes section, cited to the Patrick Bet-David interview of 23 August 2019 with a timestamped YouTube link.
"Kobe Bryant's Last Great Interview" (Valuetainment)youtube.com

The primary source itself — the full Bet-David interview, published 23 August 2019, opened at the point Wikiquote cites.
Kobe Bryant Speaks on Shaq in New Valuetainment Interviewhypebeast.com

Contemporary August 2019 press coverage confirming the Valuetainment interview and summarising what Bryant discussed in it.
Kobe Bryant — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography and career record, including the missed shots in the 1997 Western Conference semifinals against Utah.
Kobe Bryant Reflects On 'Airball Game' Vs. Jazzlakersnation.com

Details the 1997 game behind the quote — four air balls, three in overtime, a 98–93 overtime loss — and Bryant calling it a turning point.

The speaker

Who was Kobe Bryant?

Kobe Bryant

1978–2020 · Los Angeles Lakers guard, five-time NBA champion

Kobe Bryant (born 23 August 1978, died 26 January 2020) spent his entire twenty-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers, joining straight from high school in 1996 and retiring in 2016 with five championships, the 2008 MVP award and two Finals MVPs. After basketball he turned to storytelling, winning the 2018 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Dear Basketball. In his last years he gave a run of long interviews about mindset and preparation — the source of most of the “Mamba Mentality” lines that circulate today.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Kobe Bryant, interview by Patrick Bet-David, "Kobe Bryant's Last Great Interview," Valuetainment, YouTube video, published 23 August 2019, at approximately 20:15. Wording as transcribed in Wikiquote, "Kobe Bryant."

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Get over yourself! 'Cause it's not about you, man’?” Last verified 17 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/get-over-yourself-cause-its-not-about-you-man/

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