Kobe Could Have Been A Knick
Hooped Up | January 31, 2007
When Kobe Bryant was a free agent in 2004, Isiah Thomas and the Knicks flew to Southern California armed with their mid-level exception. Despite being nearly $100 million short of what the Lakers offered, Bryant listened to their offer.
“The reason why I even was interested in taking that meeting was because of this city,” the 28-year-old Bryant said in an interview Tuesday morning. “Because I always loved this city. Always. Ever since I came here, growing up in Philadelphia, there’s always so much energy and so much buzz in this city. How passionate they are about basketball, how knowledgeable they are about basketball.”
Bryant, a nine-time All-Star, excitedly ticked off the names of the Knicks legends Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe and Dave DeBusschere and said, “I just wanted to play here so bad.”
“I know what it’s like to have a team here that’s successful and how the city rallies around it,” he said. “So I was very interested. And if they had more cap flexibility, it’d definitely be a place where I would end up. I might have picked the Knicks.”
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thank you for giving us this accurate information about kobe
Fares B , a middle school student in Dubai, UAE | March 11, 2007after reading this article my idea of New York changed too. i thought of new york city as a place where people were only interested in business and money.