Sports #TBT of the Week

Since his career is over next Wednesday I thought I'd pay my respect to Kobe Bryant. Hated him when he went against the Celtics in the Finals (If Perk doesn't get hurt in game 6 the Lakers would have lost game 7 in 2010 I truly believe that) but as I get older I respect Mamba more for all he's done for the NBA. He's the last of a dying breed of actual competitors in the NBA. Now it's a love fest and everybody is boys. I hate it. You're supposed to be competitive in sports and have rivals. I didn't like him because he was a rival of the Celtics. I feel like that is going away with how sport sports and life in general is becoming but thats something for another day. Hated Kobe on the court against my team but loved that he embraced being the bad guy and the villain. He knew who he was. 

He'll retire an 18 time all star, with 5 NBA championships, 7 Finals appearances, all time leading scorer in Lakers history, 3rd highest scorer in NBA history. Love him or hate him he is probably a top 10 player of all time.

So since he is retiring this weeks sports #tbt is when Kobe scored 81 against the Raptors...Poor Jalen Rose 

I do think it's stupid that he changed his number half way through is career, does he get 8 or 24 retired?  You can only do that if you change teams or in your first couple season. I'm a BIG number guy in sports, it's how you're truly recognized and thought of. What number comes to mind when you think of Kobe? 8 or 24? I bet it's close to 50-50. 

But it truly was the ultimate rebranding. Can't find the whole clip but Daniel Tosh said it best 

"The first thing Michael Phelps should have done when that photo came out was call Kobe Bryant's publicist. Cuz Kobe was accused of rape, and all he had to do was settle in court for millions of dollars, change his jersey number and win a championship and that soulless town in LA couldn't be prouder. I just hope that when parents let their kids run around in #24 jerseys, they have the decency to say: 'well come on, number 8 was the rapist. Number 24 has a great work ethic and an unblockable turnaround.'"

My all time favorite Kobe moment.