April 18, 2017
Now retired, Lower Merion native/Lakers guard/future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant has largely remained out of the public spotlight outside of the occasional weird video. But Bryant popped up on The Players’ Tribune on Tuesday, touching on a subject near and dear to Philly fans’ hearts.
Reflecting on his career, Bryant wrote about his obsession with Allen Iverson as a younger player:
I obsessively read every article and book I could find about AI. I obsessively watched every game he had played, going back to the IUPU All-American Game. I obsessively studied his every success, and his every struggle. I obsessively searched for any weakness I could find.
I searched the world for musings to add to my AI Musecage. This led me to study how great white sharks hunt seals off the coast of South Africa.
Bryant and the Lakers would go on to beat Iverson and the Sixers in the 2001 NBA Finals.
In addition to heavy Discovery Channel watching, Bryant also “flipped the table, threw the chairs, and broke the TV” after seeing highlights of Iverson dropping 35 points on SportsCenter back in 1996. So, now you know.
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