“Loved Disney”: Former NBA Champion Talks About How Kobe Bryant Would Have Loved The NBA Bubble

Last night, Anthony Davis scored 23 points in the first half for the 20th time this season. With that, he became the first Laker to achieve this since Kobe Bryant, who did it back in 2012-13. Post-game, he expressed how he felt about sharing this feat with the Lakers legend.

“I just got chills,” Davis told Rachel Nichols of ESPN. “It’s tough always talking about him but to be in a category with [Kobe Bryant], it means a lot. I know he’s looking down on us and cheering us on, so we want to do it for him. It’s an honor to even be mentioned with his name.”

He may not be with us today, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from thinking about Kobe every day. Former NBA champion Chris Bosh also talked about it and wrote in his blog a few days back that he had been “thinking a lot about Kobe lately.”

What would Kobe Bryant have done in the bubble?

“I’ve also been thinking a lot about Kobe lately,” Bosh wrote. “What he’d make of all this, how he’d inspire the rest of us. I can’t help but imagine that despite everything, he’d have loved this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to devote himself fully to basketball—shooting, like he always did, as early as 4 a.m. and as late as midnight—though I can’t imagine he could have refrained from heading over to the amusement park for some rides. Kobe straight up loved Disney.

“I know Kobe will be watching from above, dissecting every pump (fake) and every pull up anyone makes in Orlando this summer and fall. That gets me excited about the Bubble. It’s basketball, and that’s what we’ve been missing this whole time: rubber on wood, leather through the net, the sound of coaches hollering down the sidelines. In an empty arena, those sounds will be even louder. And whether it’s Kobe upstairs or my family and me on our living room couch, we’ll all be listening.”

Bosh was never able to team up with Kobe in the NBA, but they were still close as they played together for the country. They played together during the 2008 Olympics when Team USA went on to win the gold medal. Last year, Bosh met Kobe during the FIBA Basketball World Cup, and it was a reunion we all loved to see. With Kobe’s birthday approaching in a couple of weeks, it’s going to be an emotional day for basketball fans yet again.

Sources:

The Last Chip by Chris Bosh

ESPN on Twitter