It's been nearly four years since Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant left us far sooner than he should have.
Bryant left a legacy behind that transcended basketball and is immortalized as one of the all-time greats to ever play the game.
Now, Nike is honoring Kobe with ‘That's Mamba' billboards that have started to pop up around New York City:
Bryant was known as the NBA's ultimate competitor, willing to go toe-to-toe with opponents or even teammates that were perceived as not giving maximum effort.
Former Lakers player Smush Parker played for five years in the NBA, but the one thing most people know about him was his feud with Bryant. Parker recently spoke about his tattered relationship with the Black Mamba during their time together in Purple & Gold.
The former Lakers guard wasn't as big a fan of Kobe as the rest of us:
“The man never spoke to me. … I started with this man, I was his co-worker. Like we shared a cubicle side-by-side. How do you do that for two seasons and never hold a conversation? … I'm not even going to get to how that's disrespectful as a man.”
Parker continued, “He told me one day at practice — I tried to talk to him outside of basketball about football. And he looked at me in practice and was dead serious and said, ‘You can’t talk to me. You need more accolades under your belt before you come talk to me.”
Whether the Lakers star was trying to motivate Parker to become a better player or had a personal beef with him remains to be seen. But there's no denying Bryant's mentality drove him to be greater than anyone else.
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