It's not just the flagrant fouls that have drawn his ire, either. Bryant said the hand-check rule, introduced in the 2004-05 season, has made life more difficult on defenders and lowered the bar for today's offensive players, per McMenamin:
I like the contact. As a defensive player, if you enjoy playing defense, that's what you want. You want to be able to put your hands on a guy. You want to be able to hand check a little bit. The truth is, it makes the game [where] players have to be more skillful. Nowadays, literally anybody can get out there and get to the basket and you can't touch anybody. Back then, if guys put their hands on you, you had to have the skill to be able to go both ways, change direction, post up, you had to have a mid-range game because you didn't want to go all the way to the basket because you would get knocked ass over tea kettle.