End of an era for Kobe Bryant?
However you rang in the New Year, I’m 97 percent sure you had a better time than Kobe Bryant.
In case you missed it, his wife, Vanessa, filed for divorce last month after 10 years of marriage.
I guess Kobe wasn’t able to procure a gigantic, seven-figure diamond ring this time to get his wife to come back, like he did in 2003 after he admitted to Colorado police he had sex with a hotel employee.
To recap: The 19-year-old employee claimed he raped her, Bryant denied it, they went to court and the case was dismissed. The detailed, jaw-dropping documents are on the Smoking Gun, if you’re interested in revisiting that sordid situation.
The set of documents that you’ll never see: Kobe’s divorce settlement. It probably would have fallen somewhere between Michael Jordan’s and Tiger’s, anywhere from $100 million to $200 million. Kobe made a giant mistake and they never got a pre-nup.
Compounding Kobe’s terrible start to 2012: The Lakers’ new coach, Mike Brown, is pretty bad, the team looks old and sluggish and the 33-year-old Bryant is struggling with his shot. Bottom line, the Lakers don’t appear to be an elite team anymore, and you get a sense the end of an era is approaching.
When a guy’s losing legal battles with his wife all day and then with his legs at night on the court, eventually he’s going to take out his frustrations on someone. I’d guess it’ll be his teammates.
Eventually.
– Jason Raj McIntyre covers athletes off the field and runs the popular sports blog, TheBigLead.com.
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