On Monday night, Team USA overcame a sluggish start and coasted to an easy win against Venezuela, 113-69.
This year's team may have had some players withdraw from representing their country but the 12 that remain are definitely more than capable of blowing out the competition and are on their way to an impressive start in defending their Gold medal.
One of the biggest names that skipped the Summer Games in Rio is Kobe Bryant. The 37-year-old had announced his retirement in the early part of last season and finished his 20th year in the NBA with what a lot of people considered as his farewell tour.
The Black Mamba may have skipped what could have been his last Olympics but last night, we got treated to the next best thing to seeing him play.
Bryant's cousin, John Cox, plays for the Venezuelan National Team and finished the game with a Mamba-esque stat line. Cox was also born in Philadelphia and whose dad's sister is married to Joe Bryant, led Venezuela in scoring with 19 points, but took a game-high 20 attempts in doing so.
To put this into perspective, no other Venezuelan player had more than 10 attempts, while Carmelo Anthony had the most shots for the U.S. with only 11.
Before the game started, Cox took to his Instagram account to post what sneakers he will be wearing for their game that night:
And while there are no pictures of him and Bryant together, the Los Angeles Lakers legend erased all doubts if Cox was indeed related to him in tweets he made. He also showed some love to his younger family member:
Congrats cuz! Proud of you https://t.co/orby2AU3sJ
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) September 13, 2015
Unbelievable feeling watching my lil coz @zipzero33 on @NBCSports vs @usabasketball showing the world what he is capable of as a player
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) August 8, 2016
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