When he got traded to the Los Angeles Lakers back in 2014, Jeremy Lin had an idea of how life was going to be much different with Kobe Bryant as his teammate. However, nothing prepared him for his shocking encounter with the fallen Lakers legend right after his move was made official.
Lin recently looked back at his time with the Lakers and how his Hollywood tenure started. One particular Kobe memory continues to stand out for Lin through the years. At this point, he still doesn't know how Bryant was able to track him down on his secret phone:
āI remember, at that time, because of Linsanity, I got a second phone,ā Lin recalled. āAnd this second phone was super private. Everyone else had my other number, but nobody had this number ā only my family, basically, and my closest friends.
āThen I get an unknown message on my private number. And it's like, āHey, you want to work out with me? Next week at 6 A.M. or 5:45 A.M.' And then it was like, āKB.' I literally looked at my family, āWhy do I have an unknown number, and who's KB? ā¦ Oh, shoot! I think this is Kobe Bryant.'ā
@jlin7 Talked about this story and many others with my trainer Josh Fan on his podcast.šļø #kobe #jeremylin #lakers #mambamentality
That's a pretty awesome story. Also, it's not at all surprising considering how this is Kobe Bryant we're talking about here. I can imagine Kobe's stone-cold face as he was composing his text for Jeremy Lin. The Black Mamba literally and figuratively wanted to send his new teammate a message, and it worked to perfection. So much so, that the message remains loud and clear in Lin's head to this very day.