Michael Jordan once admitted that Kobe Bryant was the only player who could beat him 1v1 because he stole all his moves. There’s no denying that Kobe tried to emulate Jordan, especially early on in his career. In his quest to surpass his idol, the Mamba tried everything to match MJ in all aspects of basketball, which included the art of trash-talking. However, Kobe took it one step further and talked smack to his opponents in their native language.
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Tony Parker recently sat down with Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, and Dwyane Wade for the inaugural episode of the former Miami Heat star’s The Why with Dwyane Wade podcast. During the conversation, Parker recounted an intriguing story of going head-to-head against Kobe Bryant in his rookie year for the San Antonio Spurs. The 6 ft. 2″ guard was drafted 28th overall in the 2001 NBA Draft by the Spurs.
During his first postseason in 2002, Parker had to face the formidable Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, in the Western Conference Semifinals. The Spurs were burdened with the uphill task of stopping the dominant Lakers team from three-peating that year. A rookie Parker found Kobe Bryant guarding him on the floor. During the podcast, the 41-year-old revealed that Kobe was talking smack to him the entire series in French.
However, the Lakers star’s French was sketchy and Parker made the fatal mistaking of letting him know exactly that. “He [Kobe] said some stuff [in French] but it was not really good. And I said, ‘Man, You don’t even talk French,” the Hall-of-Famer added. The Lakers would go on to win the series 4-1, before completing their three-peat. However, the story doesn’t end there.
The Lakers would meet the Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals once again the very next year. This time Kobe came prepared. The Lakers star talked trash to Parker once again while guarding him. But this time in immaculate French. “And he [Kobe] was talking straight trash in French. And I was like, ‘Man, you know French that well. You learned that fast,‘” the French national told Wade and Co., as they burst into laughter.
After their loss in the 2002 playoffs, the Spurs created a fortress in San Antonio, led by the likes of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Their dynasty would give a lot of great teams in the NBA a run for their money, including the Boston Celtics, the Lakers, and the Miami Heat Superteam in the 2010s.
There’s no doubt that Kobe’s trash-talking made Parker’s head-to-head matchups with him harder. Parker still holds a 26-12 record against Kobe in the regular season. However, the five-time NBA Champion holds a 14-8 edge in the postseason against the Spurs guard.
Kobe Bryant was a master at trash-talking
There’s no shortage of stories of Michael Jordan using his trash-talking skills to get under his opponent’s skin. However, Kobe’s multilingual trash-talking took many players by surprise. The Mamba put in a lot of effort mentally to give himself even the slightest edge on the court.
That entailed learning foreign languages to talk smack to foreign players in own tongue. Kobe spent a large part of his childhood in Italy with his family and therefore, was fluent in Italian. Additionally, he tried to learn other European languages as well, like Spanish, French etc., to talk smack to European players.
Kobe famously talked smack to Luis Scola of Argentina in Spanish during USA’s matchup with the South American country in the 2008 Olympics. On a less serious note, Kobe even surprised Dallas Mavericks’ Slovenian sensation Luka Doncic by talking smack to him in Slovenian from the sidelines. This effort from Kobe prompted foreign players to respect him even more as a competitor.
