Kobe Bryant: I Was Joking about Europe

Well, I guess it was much ado about nothing when it came to talk of Kobe Bryant signing a mega-money Euroleague deal.  After reading rumours linking Kobe to Russia and LeBron James to Greece (which we at HoopsVibe covered in detail), many believed there was a real chance that one of the NBA’s big names could make the unprecedented leap from the league to overseas even with the prospect of a maximum contract on the table at home.

Apparently, we were running our mouths for nothing as Kobe has now revealed that any talk of leaving the country for a tax-free fifty million dollars was purely in jest.

Somebody throws us this question about playing overseas.  I don’t want him to answer it. He’s a young kid; I don’t want him to take the controversial stuff. I said, ‘Well, if a team throws us $50 million, then we’ll all go.’ …It’s just something that was a joke for us, and people took it and ran with it or whatever. That’s fine. Everybody needs to banter about something. – Kobe Bryant

He ain’t lying.  In the post-Olympics, pre-anything-else period in the dead of the summer, such a story was more than enough to get the blogosphere buzzing.  Turns out it was nothing but hot air.  Our bad.  Move along.