Kobe Bryant had a farewell tour this season that was so sad it made Derek Jeter cringe. It culminated in Bryant scoring 60 points in his final game, a 101-96 victory against the Utah Jazz.
There seemed to be an unwritten contract between Bryant and society about that game — if you don’t brag too much about it publicly, we won’t point out that you took 50 freaking shots and the Jazz defended you the way a dad defends his 8-year-old in the driveway. Everyone cheered as he left the floor and people said nice things on Twitter, but let’s not act like this wasn’t Utah’s going away present to him.
But no, Kobe couldn’t just let it be. He was at a promotional thing for the upcoming NBA 2K16 Tournament on Wednesday night, and:
Kobe on his last game: "I still can't believe it happened. I don't know where the hell it came from. There were no signs of that happening."
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) June 2, 2016
You don’t know where it came from? It came from shooting 50 mostly uncontested shots from the guy at your pickup game everyone is afraid to confront about their ball hog status. Of course there were no signs of that happening, as it’s quite rare in professional sports for one team to simply not defend someone on the other team. Kobe is aware of this, right?
It’s not like he thinks he looked cool in front of his kids, right?
Kobe: "My kids got to experience the younger Kobe for once. I got a chance to be cool in front of them." pic.twitter.com/QBRHAHmbIJ
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) June 2, 2016
He does! Kobe was 6-for-21 (TWENTY-ONE!) from 3-point range in that game. That was less a cool performance and more like a group of hostages being powerless to stop their captor from doing whatever he wants to torture them, or your dad coming to the middle school game and raining buckets on children who aren’t trying to stop him.
Anyway, all the best to Mr. Bryant as he continues to enjoy retirement.
