Italy-based Corriere de Bologna, via Sky News, is today looking back nostalgically at those crazy days of the NBA player lockout – seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? – in quoting from an interview given by Kobe Bryant in Italian vis-à-vis the long flirtation Virtus Bologna and president Claudio Sabbatini carried on with the Los Angeles Laker while awaiting the delayed 2011-12 season opener.
“It was all true,” Corriere quotes Kobe as stating. “It was not a hoax.” Kobe goes on to say that “As I’ve said many times, I would be happy to one day play in the Italian League; it’s a dream I had as a child…”
The Corriere goes on to cite inside sources as explaining that Sabbatini & Co. could not compromise with Bryant’s representative Rob Pelinka on the nature of the games Kobe would have played. Sabbatini’s plan was mostly planned as being “a kind of occasional collaboration” because the club was having serious problems with the league’s standard labor contract and therein that old bugaboo, taxes.
Concluded Kobe’s thoughts on playing in Europe: “I was really looking forward to starting this adventure in Italy, but then things in the NBA settled down and the season started after the lockout, so [my return to] Italy did not materialize. But there is still time in the future.”
Still time, eh? We can wait…
Tags: Claudio Sabatini, Italy, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA, NBA lockout, Virtus Bologna
This is exactly what he wants, to win a 6th/7th ring in the US (before his contract expires) then go after his 7th/8th in EuroLeague which would be AMAZING. This would be an incredible set of events and takes Kobe’s career to an all time high.
good for him if he ends up doing it one day, but i’d be surprised if it happened when he was still capable of putting up significant numbers at the nba level. might happen when he’s 40 or so…
@ S24 – Virtus Bologna does not play in the Euroleague. So he would have to find a different team, if he wanted to do that.
It’s also called Euroleague, not “EuroLeague”. EuroLeague is the women’s competition.
[...] Bryant says that his flirtations with an Italian club this summer were serious and he still would consider playing there at the end of his NBA career. File this in the “what [...]
[...] about joining Virtus Bologna had the NBA lockout wiped out the season, and the Lakers’ superstar plans to eventually return to Italy and hoop there. From Ball in Europe: “It was all true,’ Corriere quotes Kobe as stating. ‘It [...]
[...] front office continued to hunt for big-name talent as the NBA lockout continued. Besides maybe the Virtus Bologna flirtation with Kobe Bryant, no team garnered so much attention from media as Beşiktaş. The team was linked by ESPN with the [...]