Kobe Bryant who played his last NBA game last weekend revealed on
ESPN.com that he hadn't spoken to his parents in the last three years.
He said the reason he stopped speaking with them and helping them out
was because they auctioned off his High school memorabilia without his
consent. He said:
“Our relationship is shit,”. “I say to them, ‘I’m going to buy you a
very nice home, and the response is ‘That’s not good enough’?” “Then
you’re selling my shit?”
After his parents' lawyers worked out a settlement allowing them to
auction six items of Kobe's memorabilia totaling $500,000 in 2013, his
parents issued a statement which read:
“We regret our actions and statements related to the Kobe Bryant auction
memorabilia,” the statement from Joe and Pamela Bryant read. “We
apologize for any misunderstanding and unintended pain we may have
caused our son and appreciate the financial support that he has provided
to us over the years.”
Kobe who has two sisters said that he has also stopped supporting his
sisters because they are smart college educated women who have their own
careers and can support themselves.
Before the incident with his parents, Kobe financially supported his
parents and sisters and his wife-Vanessa's family. Even though he has
stopped supporting his family financially, he is still supporting
Vanessa's parents.
Kobe also mentioned that his father's failure as an NBA player was what motivated him to be a successful NBA player.
He said his father, Joe Bryant was a 6-foot-9 forward with the skill set
of a guard that would have made him successful in today’s NBA, but in
the Eastern Conference of the late 1970s, he was miscast as a defensive
specialist.
According to Joe Bryant himself, his whole career would’ve been
different if he’d been in a different system and had been able to play
on the perimeter like Magic Johnson.
Kobe said:
“When I hear those things, I don’t really understand them.”
Why should the whims of fate, which system he played in, determine the success of a man’s career?
And he didn't understand how his father accepted that and failed to be successful.
In Kobe’s mind, he could never accept disappointment on the court like
his father did. He couldn’t. Not if he wanted to be a legend, so his
father's failure drove him to be a successful NBA player, the Legend he
has become today.
