Kobe Bryant has heard it all. When you’re a five-time NBA champion who has played in the league for 16 years, nothing new can really be thrown at you. At Team USA’s Summer Olympics training camp recently, former Duke standout Kyrie Irving tried to lay a challenge on Kobe that he hasn’t heard before by betting him $50,000 he can beat the 14-time All-Star in a game of one-on-one. To his credit, Irving is probably the first 20-year-old to challenge the future Hall of Famer with that kind of cash on the line. Naturally, Kobe laughed at the 20-year-old’s delusional suggestion.
“This is not a high school kid coming to you — ‘Kobe, Kobe, oh my God!'” Irving said as you can see from the DukeBluePlanet.com video that Ball Don’t Lie passed along. “This is me, coming to talk to you, one-on-one.”
“You just came out of high school, kid!” Kobe replied. “You played two games in college. You played two games. You are a high school kid.”
The smack talk continued for quite a while, with Kobe telling Irving to call his dad and tell him he challenged Kobe Bryant to a game of one-on-one because his old man would call him crazy. The two settled on an agreement to play one-on-one for $50,000 next summer with the winner donating the dough to the charity of their choice. As long as Irving gets embarrassed for a good cause, we won’t rag on him too badly. First Anthony Davis and now Kyrie Irving? I think these young kids are forgetting that Kobe is 33, not 40.
