Charlotte Hornets big man Taj Gibson recently shared a never-before-heard Kobe Bryant story. Gibson played college basketball at USC from 2006 to 2009 and told The Score’s Brad Parker how his teammates stole pairs of Bryant’s latest shoes from the Los Angeles Lakers locker room.
“I remember we was at [USC], I remember we was playing in the Pac-10 Tournament and we were in the Laker locker room,” Gibson said. “As a young hooper, you go in the Laker locker room, you’re just looking like, ‘Where’s Kobe’s locker?’ And I remember the Kobe’s just dropped.”
Gibson and his teammates started checking the vents on the lockers to see which was Bryant’s and if there were any shoes in there. One of them did end up striking gold.
“One guy pops one vent open, he said, ‘Oh my god, it’s Bean!’ And then everybody went crazy,” Gibson stated. “We take the gear out, we take most of the kicks from the locker room.”
The players were thrilled to get their hands on authentic Kobe’s, but their joy was short-lived. No more than a week later, Rudy Hackett, who was the team’s strength and conditioning manager, ordered them to return the shoes.
“He got the phone call,” Gibson said. “He comes in the locker room [and says], ‘Alright, they don’t wanna know anything. Just give me all the shoes and I won’t say nothing. I’mma turn around, I’mma come back in five minutes. Just put it down. Give it back to them. Nothing happened.'”
Gibson claimed he had no idea who stole the shoes and then hilariously admitted he wasn’t going to snitch.
“I turn around, there’s at least 20 pairs of kicks on the floor,” Gibson stated. “I’m like, ‘Damn, we robbed ’em.’ We took some kicks from the whole team. Those were some elite shoes at the time. The very next year, we got Kobe’s… Every time he came to Chicago my first couple of years in the NBA, he was like, ‘I know I had to take care of y’all, man. I know y’all wanted some kicks.'”
The “Kobe USC” colorway, featuring the Nike Zoom Kobe 4 in USC’s colors, was released on Jan. 1, 2009. Bryant clearly wasn’t too offended by some kids wanting to play in his shoes. He realized how much it would mean to them to have those shoes and made their wish come true.
Gibson got to play in them in what would be his final season in college as he declared for the 2009 NBA Draft. The Chicago Bulls selected him with the 26th pick and he has gone on to have a long and productive NBA career. The 39-year-old, who is in his 16th season in the NBA, is averaging 3.0 points, 3.4 rebounds, 0.6 assists, 0.3 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game for the Hornets in 2024-25.
Thank you for being a valued reader of Fadeaway World. If you liked this article, please consider following us on Google News. We really appreciate your support.
