Never could we have imagined that Kobe Bryant would mean more to a team than he does to the Los Angeles Lakers, but now one has to wonder. If Claudio Sabatini is any indication, Kobe is more important to Italian club team Virtus Bologna than he is to Jack Nicholson.
There have already been insane rumors floating around that Sabatini is willing to offer Bryant $2 million to play a single game in Italy. Imagine if the Lakers paid him $2 million per game? For those of you who hate math, that would be a yearly salary of around $160 million, which would put Tiger Woods and Money Mayweather to shame. Considering Kobe might be giving players loans during the lockout, money is obviously not an issue for him. If you thought a $2 million, one-game offer spelled desperation, check out this letter Sabatini wrote to Barack Obama on his team’s website.
Dear Mr. President,
We have a dream: to see Kobe Bryant playing for our Team Virtus Pallacanestro Bologna, the Italian town well known in the world as basket City.
According to your wishes we hope that the NBA lockout will shortly stop but in the meanwhile let us have the chance to see at least for one game the great Kobe Bryant playing with our black and white jersey and be part of our history.
Obama may be able to get inside an NBA player’s head with a wise crack here and there, but I doubt there is much he could do to convince Kobe to play a game in Italy. Not to mention, basketball in America is pretty good for America. If Obama had any influence at all, it would be in his best interest to use it toward ending the lockout. But…he doesn’t.
