Even the biggest of NBA superstars have their own endearing narrative about the late Kobe Bryant. This time around, it was Heat legend Dwyane Wade who shared his Kobe story.
Wade took a trip down memory lane as he narrated how Bryant — already a bonafide superstar in the league at that time — welcomed Wade to the NBA by applying some choking full-court defense on him. The retired Heat star was on his Instagram Live feed doing a video call with Golden State Warriors stud Stephen Curry when he talked about that epic Kobe moment.
"I remember when Kobe first picked me up at 94 feet."
D-Wade looks back at the moment he felt respected in the league. (via @DwyaneWade) pic.twitter.com/pLzUZZkDqH
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 25, 2020
It wasn't clear if the Heat icon was referring to an incident during his rookie year or several seasons down the line when Wade was still a relative “up and comer” despite coming off a championship that's hounded by criticism. As Wade described above, this was also the moment that he realized that he had already gained the respect of the league, being that they wanted to deny him the basketball at all costs.




Unfortunately for him, that particular sequence did not end to well for him, and it was Kobe who got the last laugh.
That was obviously a pretty awesome experience for Wade, and one that he remembers fondly to this very day. It was clear at that moment that he had no intentions of backing down against Kobe, as Wade willingly took on the Lakers superstar. Bryant himself is an excellent lockdown defender, and he exhibited the same to Wade in this particular sequence. Bryant wanted to send a message to Wade, and the latter definitely heard it loud and clear.