Kobe Bryant, Smush Parker and reconciliation: A love story
By Grant Hughes
Kobe Bryant and Smush Parker, basically the Ross and Rachel* of the mid-aughts NBA scene, might finally give us all the union we’ve been craving.
Okay, not really. But Parker told TMZ he wanted to play in Ice Cube’s “Big 3” basketball tournament with Bryant, which affords us the chance to imagine how that might go.
Quick refresher: Smush and Kobe didn’t like each other much when they played together for two years from 2005-07, with Parker famously saying the Lakers’ problems started and ended with Bryant, while Kobe took the predictable approach of patronizing and dismissively ignoring Parker. He called him “the worst” and referred to him walking onto the Lakers.
Standard Kobe stuff.
But what if they reunited? Envision the tension! Imagine the hijinks! Cringe at Bryant’s soul-sapping psychological attacks!
The Phone Call
KB: Quiet, Smush. I know it’s you because my phone says “weak signal,” and you were always the weakest, weren’t you? No, don’t speak; I watch TMZ. I know what this is about, and all I have to say is…Yes, absolutely. Let’s do this. I’ve long intended to finish what I began, to utterly destroy…I mean mend our relationship via shared love of sport! Why, just last week I meant to telephone you about accompanying me on a trip to a secret subtropical island whereupon we would have played a game. A most dangerous game.
I’ve said too much. Pick you up for the tourney tomorrow morning at 8:00.
SP: —Terrified silence, regret and foreboding as he realizes Kobe knows his address…and was also maybe going to hunt him for sport—
The Pickup
Kobe insists on being in charge of transportation. He waits in the driveway instead of entering Parker’s residence for several reasons, not the least of which being the foreknowledge that Parker has erected a series of Home Alone-style booby traps in and around the perimeter of his home.
Bryant has always anticipated defensive tactics well.
Secondly, Bryant wants to assure Parker actually arrives at the tournament, and recalls the time he missed a team flight by oversleeping. So he arrives three hours before dawn (despite the agreed upon 8:00 a.m. pickup) and stares menacingly from the driveway, ready. He wants to prove a point about mental preparation and focus.
Bryant repeats self-styled mantras he’s created during retirement to psych himself up. And also to freak Parker out.
Smush will happen upon him at 8:45 a.m. (late, of course) and overhear Bryant whispering with a distant stare: “The amorous jackal does not wait for the emperor penguin’s tea time,” nodding.
“Huh?”, Smush will reply, toothbrush hanging from his mouth and two non-matching sneakers clutched in his hands as he boards the helicopter because Kobe flies a helicopter in this story.
“Get out. You’re walking,” Bryant smiles, having won another mental tussle by catching his foe unaware. “Here, wear these.” They’re the Crazy 8s.
The Conditioning
Upon arriving at the tournament venue—Bryant via helicopter, Smush on foot—Kobe institutes pregame mental conditioning.
He draws Smush in, breaking through trepidation by setting up familiar touchstones from the better days of their relationship. Phil Jackson, who coached them during their two years together, was famous for distributing books to his players. Smush will remember that, and when Kobe offers him two books, the first of which is Practical Taoism and Sage-Burning Basics, the emotional barriers will come down. Smush will feel safe.
He’ll feel less secure when he opens the hollowed-out book and a live rattlesnake tries to bite him.
“Don’t worry,” Bryant, smirking, will say. “It doesn’t have any venom. I harvested it. For…reasons.”
Smush, horrified, wonders whether he’s made a mistake.
“You really are just terrible,” Bryant giggles.
The Games
Oh right! The tournament itself!
Contrary to Parker’s wishes, Lamar Odom won’t be he and Bryant’s third man. Kobe will instead set up a potted ficus on the left wing and only pass to the plant. He’ll stare silently at Parker the entire time, just whipping chest passes to the shrub, all to make a point.
“Do you see what I’m doing, Smush? Do you see who I’m choosing over you? Who I’m trusting more than you? How does this make you feel?”, his eyes will say.
Naturally, Bryant will script his team’s other plays.
Play 1: Parker, at Kobe’s behest, will announce to everyone in the gym that he’s sorry, that he never should have besmirched Bryant’s name, that he just wants to get past the whole beef. Kobe has encouraged Parker to shed real tears during the heartfelt mea culpa because the sorrow of his enemies fuels him and because he thinks it’ll be funny. While Parker’s weeping distracts onlookers and opponents, Kobe sneaks through the lane for a lay-up.
Play 2: Ficus iso.
Play 3: Bryant will work his way into the mid-post area with a series of graceful and calculated spins, reverse pivots and shoulder shimmies. There, he’ll draw all three defenders as Parker floats to the right wing, feet set and hands in catch position, ready to put that career 34.5 percent stroke from deep to good use. Bryant will make eye contact and punt the ball out of bounds, never breaking his gaze. “It was the best option,” he’ll say, smiling.
The Aftermath
Kobe, Smush and the ficus do not win the tournament. But nobody else does either because Bryant punted all the basketballs out of play in the semifinals, and they had to call the whole thing off.
On the helicopter ride home, Kobe invites the ficus over for a barbecue. He does it on the helicopter’s loudspeaker so Smush, walking below, in the dark, can hear.
Parker tries to remember why he wanted to do this in the first place. In search of mental quietude, he stops beneath a streetlight and opens the second new-age meditation book Bryant gave him.
There’s another snake in it.
*Yes, this analogy extends to the rest of the Lakers. Kwame Brown is Chandler, Luke Walton is Phoebe, Chris Mihm is Joey, Lamar Odom is obviously Monica, and Phil Jackson is Mr. Heckles, the weird neighbor.