Smush Parker fires back at Kobe Bryant’s criticism
In an interview this week, Lakers star Kobe Bryant called former teammate Smush Parker “the worst” and said “He shouldn’t have been in the NBA but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. So we let him walk on.” Kobe even refused to let Parker talk to him about football because he didn’t have enough “accolades under his belt.” He even went as far to say that Parker cost him the 2006 MVP because he had no talent. Why so salty Kobe?
Smush Parker had enough of the criticism. Parker fired back at Kobe in an interview with Hard 2 Guard Radio and gave the impression that Kobe was a diva and a bad teammate. Parker also spoke out about Kobe’s team skills saying, “What I don’t like about him is the man that he is. His personality. How he treats people. I don’t like that side of Kobe Bryant. Basketball is a team sport. It is team-oriented. It is not an individual sport. It’s not like tennis or golf, it is a team sport.”
He went on to say “On road trips, he traveled with his security guards. Those were the guys he talked to. On the team plane, he sat in the back of the plane by himself.” Kobe Bryant also allegedly sat at his own table once when the team went out for a big dinner. In 2007, Parker even stopped passing the ball to Bryant because their relationship got so out of hand. Parker spoke about the issue saying, “The reason I wasn’t a Laker after my second year is because I didn’t bow down to [Kobe]. I didn’t kiss his a–. I wasn’t kissing his feet. Quite frankly, towards the end of the second season, I stopped passing him the ball. I stopped giving him the ball. I started looking him off.”
I don’t think these two will be meeting up for drinks anytime soon.
