Kobe Bryant Reignites His Decade-Long Feud With Despised Teammate Smush Parker

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At this point, Kobe Bryant’s decade-long public disdain for former teammate and less-than-stellar NBA player Smush Parker is bordering on bullying.

In an interview at the USC Performance Science Institute last month, the iconic guard was asked if he knew who was the second-leading scorer for the Lakers during his legendary 81-point game in 2006.

When Kobe was told it was Smush Parker, who in his eyes was no more talented than the third best player on your YMCA men’s league team, he nearly dry-heaved.

“What did he have, four?” Kobe said, via TMZ Sports.

Smush actually chipped in with an honorable 13 points.

“Now you know why I had to score 81,” Bryant said of the second highest individual scoring performance in NBA history. “Tough days, man. That was tough.”

That season, Parker, who went undrafted out of Fordham, spent started all 82 games and ranked third on the team with 11.5 points per contest. It should be noted that the Lakers were semi-garbage that year–getting bounced in the first round by the Suns. In other words, Kwame Brown was on the team.

Kobe has taken just about every opportunity to stuff Parker in a locker. When talking about Steve Nash winning the NBA MVP that season (despite Kobe averaging a mind-bending 35.4 ppg), Kobe told the Los Angeles Times:

“I tell Steve, you won MVP but I was playing with Smush Parker. He’s playing with [Leandro] Barbosa. I’m playing with Smush and Kwame [Brown]. My goodness.

“Smush Parker was the worst. He shouldn’t have been in the NBA, but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. We let him walk on.”

A couple years after Smush was out of the league, he said playing with Kobe was “overrated.” On top of that, he claimed that one day after practice, he tried to talk to Kobe about something other than basketball…

“He looked at me in practice and was dead serious and said, ‘You can’t talk to me. You need more accolades under your belt before you can come talk to me.'”

Kobe Bryant: transcendent basketball player. Huge dickhead.

[h/t Bleacher Report]

 

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Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.