Kobe Bryant ripped into his ex-Lakers teammates from the franchise’s dark years, and one of those players, Smush Parker, has fired back in response.
Kobe Bean was talking about the MVP voting for the ’05-’06 season in which he averaged a career high 35.4 points per game but finished fourth. His current teammate Steve Nash won MVP that season with Phoenix, and Nash’s Suns beat the Lakers in seven games in the first round of the playoffs.
“I tell Steve, you won MVP but I was playing with Smush Parker,” Bryant said on Wednesday. “He’s playing with [Leandro] Barbosa. I’m playing with Smush and Kwame [Brown]. My goodness.
“Smush Parker was the worst,” Bryant said. “He shouldn’t have been in the NBA, but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. We let him walk on.”
Bryant was then asked about the criticism he faced for ballhogging during those seasons.
“Smush Parker, with Tierre Brown as the backup,” said Bryant, laughing. “I’m taking 45 shots a game. What was I supposed to do, pass the ball in to Chris Mihm? Chris Mihm?”
Bean also ridiculed the Philadelphia 76ers for signing Kwame Brown to a two-year $6 million deal in the offseason.
“I don’t know how he convinced Philadelphia to cough up $7 million a year,” said Bryant. “They want to lock us out, but they’ll pay him $7 million.”
Kobe brings his trash talk as strong as he drives the ball to the hoop.
Smush Parker wasn’t just going to sit back and let Kobe destroy the fine name he made for himself as a guard in the NBA for five years; he responded.
Parker told TMZ that Kobe “told me out of his own mouth that I couldn’t talk to him. That my accolades under my belt weren’t deserving enough for me to talk to him.”
He also says Bryant is retaliating now after Smush trashed Kobe in this 2009 interview.
As much as I’d like to get on Kobe’s case for being so petty and taking so much delight in bashing his former teammates, I really can’t find it right now. His comments were too darn funny. But yeah, Kobe should be above this sort of thing.
