On Thursday night, Larry Nance Jr was selected in the first round of the NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. Shortly after, internet sleuths uncovered an old 2012 tweet where Nance called future teammate Kobe Bryant “a rapist”.
Yesterday, during a sit-down inteveriew with ESPN’s Jemele Hill Kobe wanted to let the young rookie know that everything was and it “water under the bridge”.
He actually sent me a great message yesterday, which is really funny. I looked at it, and it was like, ‘This is when you know it’s about time to hang these things up, when your teammate writes you, ‘Hi, Mr. Bryant’ I was like, ‘What the f—?’ But it was really nice and apologetic about what had happened. I said, ‘Dude, listen. We’ve all said things and done things that we regret and wish we could take back. It’s water under the bridge, man. Welcome to the team.’ He writes back, ‘Thank you, sir.’
It’s pretty cool of Kobe to nip this right in the butt and forgive the young rook for something dumb he said when he wasa teenager.