Kobe Bryant once pulled a Draymond Green-type move a long time before he got infamous for it
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Draymond Green is really in the trenches right now.
Punching one’s own teammate isn’t quite the best thing in the world in any case. But especially given the ferocity he did it with? Yikes.
As per reports, Jordan Poole is completely fine, and continued practice despite what happened. But of course, when there is a leak such as this one, the NBA community at large is bound to go crazy over it.
So, in the spirit of big names smacking their own teammates in the face, we figured we’d bring back the time when Lakers legend Kobe Bryant did something very similar.
Kobe Bryant wanted his money back so bad, he was willing to deck his own teammate in the face for it
To most people, $100 is a lot of money. But to NBA players. Stars especially, it’s often the amount you find yourself playing around with.
The Shaq and Kobe Lakers had one such ritual, where each player, including Shaquille O’Neal, put $100 on the line.
The bet was that the first person to make a half-court shot would get $100 from each of their teammates. And of course, given his killer mentality, Kobe Bryant bagged a few victories, despite competing against the likes of legendary sharpshooter, Robert Horry, and Tinseltown royalty, Rick Fox.
Another player that was on the team during this time was 6’9” power forward, Samaki Walker. And on one fine day, he’d lost the bet to Kobe Bryant, amongst the many others on the team.
What ensued next was classic Kobe. Here is what happened from Walker’s perspective, as per ‘FiveThirtyEight’.
“Bryant looks Walker over. “My money?” he commands.
“I gotta get it to you later,” Walker replies. “I don’t have it on me.”
Bryant flashes an agitated look but walks off. Within the Lakers organization, there’s an understood 48-hour window for debts to be paid.”
Of course, this left Bryant stewing for quite some time. So, this is what happened the next morning on the team bus.
“Around 10 a.m. on February 21. The Laker players file onto the chartered team bus to make their way back to the facility for a brief practice run before the night’s matchup against the lowly Cavaliers.
Then Bryant boards the bus.
He marches toward Walker, glares downward. “Yo Maki,” he says, “you gonna give me my fucking money?”
Walker pretends not to hear, so Bryant gets louder. “Maki, where the fuck is my fucking money?”
This time Walker doesn’t merely ignore him.
This time, Walker doesn’t merely laugh at him.
No, this time Walker waves him off like an errant gnat. “I’ll give you your money,” he says, “when I have it.
And then things get real, real bad.
“Now, if one looks closely enough, he can see the steam rising from Bryant’s ears. The four-time All-Star leans past Fox, draws back his right fist, lunges across Walker’s head, and — pop!— punches him in the right eye.
For a moment, everyone on the bus freezes. Just for a moment.
Walker, 28 pounds heavier than Bryant, gazes toward McCoy, his closest friend on the roster. “Did this fucker just hit me?” he says. ‘Did he just hit me?’”
Following this, Samaki Walker threw his Discman at Kobe Bryant, but missed, before he was held back by Shaquille O’Neal’s bodyguards, and was told to take the next practice off because he needed to calm down.
We have to say, despite all of Kobe Bryant’s greatness, this wasn’t his finest moment.
What happened next?
Despite the frankly immature things Kobe Bryant had done, it appears that he wasn’t past feeling guilt.
After the whole incident, he reportedly called Samaki Walker’s hotel room, where he uttered out a sobbing apology, before later meeting him face to face and doing the same thing.
Samaki forgave him, softly giving him advice about how needs to act, and how he couldn’t go around hitting people, bring about a pretty wholesome end to an awful, awful story.
