Ever since Kobe Bryant's tragic passing, there have been some incredible stories going around about Kobe and just how funny and great of a person he was. While he could be ruthless with his teammates, he was always doing it in good fun, while also providing an edge to show people that he was very serious about winning championships.
Recently, Jeremy Lin, who played with Kobe during the 2014-2015 season, told a story on Danny Green's podcast about just how dry Kobe's sense of humor was. As he explains, Kobe once showed up to practice just to pour salt in the wounds of those who were supposedly on the trading block. Of course, this occurred one day before the deadline.
“He comes in, sweatsuit [on], he has a sling around for his hurt shoulder, he has his shades on, his Kobe shades,” Lin said as transcribed by ClutchPoints. “And he walks in and everyone’s like, ‘Ohhhh’ and Booz, Carlos Boozer, is like ‘Kob! Good to see you bro! Dang, we haven’t seen you in a bit, how come you came today?’ And he was just stone-faced, and he was like, ‘I just came by to say bye to some of you bums who are going to get traded tomorrow.’ [laughs] And then he sits down at the table where you control the scoreboard at the practice facility and he said a couple words to the coach, and then he left. And I remember one of my teammates was just like ‘I lost all motivation to practice.’”
While this may seem a little mean-spirited, you have to understand that teammates joke around with each other all the time and when you're as dignified as Kobe, you can get away with comments like that.
[Via]