Another day, another Kobe story from Jeff Teague. He switched it up from Club 520 to Gil’s Arena for the Summer League where the guys had confirmed a major fact straight from the source – if he really turned down the chance to play with Kobe Bryant in the Lakers. That little tidbit came up around a year ago on the Club 520 podcast where the 2021 champ revealed Bryant held a grudge over the rejection. And it still leaves us in disbelief. Why would Jeff Teague spurn one of his favorite players? Because of taxes apparently.

The crew at Gil’s Arena asked if Teague rejected a trade to the Lakers because he didn’t want to deal with the pressure that comes with lacing up in purple and gold. Actually, the pressure or the team had nothing to do with it. “They called me was like, ‘Yo, the Lakers going to trade for you, blah blah.’ I don’t want to go to LA. I look at the taxes and all that I’m like, nope don’t want to go there.”

Maybe Teague learned from the hard lesson Kobe’s teammate, Shaquille O’Neal got. It’s one of the big man’s infamous stories. He enjoyed relative financial ignorance while playing in Florida before skipping to LA on a massive $120 million contract and proceeds to splurge on expensive cars. When he got his paycheck after his first year in Los Angeles, O’Neal was introduced to FICA and the differing tax laws of Florida and California. He’s advocated for NBA players to get financial literacy since.

Teague took that lesson well. But he also set the record straight that he earned enough through his NBA career (a cool $99.2 million in career earnings) and he could afford a nice home in LA. He just didn’t want to and may have been responsible for the Lakers’ subsequent bad season.

Bryant seemingly thought the pressure scared Teague too. He even confronted him for rejecting the Lakers’ offer because he was scared while Teague was just starstruck.

Kobe Bryant blamed the Hawks star for bad season

Prior to the 2014-15 season, the Lakers were looking into acquiring Teague from the Atlanta Hawks. After he turned them down, they moved on and acquired Jeremy Lin. In the aftermath, the team had one of its worst seasons in the Kobe era.

During that season, the Lakers and Hawks met on the court and Bryant had a bone to pick with Teague. He went up to him in the middle of the game, pointed at Lin without discretion, and said, “You left me here with this s***?“ Talk about not holding his punches.

Teague was speechless that Bryant would openly disparage his teammate. That was how edgy he was. Especially in that season when he teamed up with Lin, Carlos Boozer, Nick Young, and Wesley Johnson. They only won 21 games that season and were far from playoff contenders while Teague was a rising point guard in the league.

The scolding fell flat though. Teague was just happy to learn Kobe Bryant knows his name. That’s a notch equivalent to making All-Star.

What do you think of the whole story? Let us know in the comments below!

Stay tuned for more such updates, and to follow what Shaq’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, has to say about the infamous Shaq-Kobe feud, Caitlin Clark’s Olympic snub, and more, watch this video.