Back in 2002, a story was sort of swept under the rug involving the Los Angeles Lakers. There was an altercation between Kobe Bryant and teammate Samaki Walker that left Walker with a black eye. In an age before Twitter and social media, those types of stories just weren't as big as they are now, especially when it involved just one star instead of two stars like the Kobe and Shaquille O'Neal feud.
While appearing on CBS Radio's Brown and Scoop Podcast, Walker told the story of that incident. He claims Kobe sucker punched him over a $100 bet. It happened on a bus to a team shootaround and Phil Jackson even stopped the driver at the request of Walker. You can listen to Walker tell that story in the audio player below (story comes in around the 7:15 mark and there are expletives):
Here's the transcript of Walker's side of the story:
"We got into it. I'm still figuring out to this day, actually bruh. Real talk, it was a situation that was probably one of the craziest, most immature situations because the situation from what I understand was over a hundred bucks. After practice, we usually get together as a team. We'd play the half court shot game, which is something that we'd do pretty often.
What everybody would do is put a hundred dollars in the pot, shoot a half court shot, and whoever makes it first, considering everybody else gets their turn, gets the pot. Obviously you understand Kobe was going through some things in his life at the time also personally. I understand me being a newcomer was made aware to, so I'll make some excuses for the young man.
At the same time, it's a crazy story, man, because we actually got into it over a hundred bucks. He won the half court contest and the rule is you get 48 hours to pay the hundred dollars. Well, it wasn't even 48 hours, Kobe comes to me on the bus and asks where his hundred bucks are, believe it or not. Out of all the people, he chose me, which is still to this day puzzling. But at the same time, I told him, 'Listen, I don't have no hundred bucks on me right now.' First of all, why are you coming at me for a hundred bucks?
With that being said, I put my earphones back on and once I put my earphones back on, the most amazing thing happened. Kobe sucker punched me. With that, all hell broke loose. First of all, I'm totally shocked that this man chose me to put his hands on and I'm still not understanding why. Was this really over a hundred bucks? It couldn't have been. With that being said, the street came out of me, so I told Phil to stop the bus. Phil stands up, looks crazy like, 'What the hell is going on?'
I told him, 'Listen. This man just put his hands on me. You need to stop this bus.' It was right before we go down into the tunnel and we're playing the Cleveland Cavaliers if I'm not mistaken. So Phil stops the bus. Hey man, step off the bus. Unfortunately, he didn't want to step off the bus because he knew what was going to happen next. I never made it to practice. They pretty much locked me up in a little room because I was ready to go crazy about the situation.
His room is right next to mine so I'm waiting for the brother. I've got to get my hit in. He never shows up. He doesn't take the bus back. I think he takes a taxi back to the hotel and I don't get a chance to see him. I get over to the game early because I know that Kobe goes to the game early. I'm still pissed off at the time now, so I made up my mind what I'm going to do. I'm going to put hands on him is what I decided. Right before game time, in comes Jerome -- Jerome is Shaq's bodyguard -- and he said, 'Listen, man. You're not going to believe this but I got Kobe outside the locker room and he wants to talk to you.'
I get off the treadmill. He goes outside and Jerome basically gives me a talk like, 'You know it's not worth it. I know what you want to do but listen. It's not a win situation for you.' He put it pretty eloquently that made me understand that I could go ahead and make this a bigger situation by fighting this man but I had to choose the professional route that is very hard to do, considering how things went down.
If it wasn't for Jerome, Shaq's bodyguard, coming in and talking to me, who I highly respected, I probably would've been gone from the Lakers a lot quicker."
Walker confirmed once again that it was a sucker punch and references the stuff Kobe had in his personal life. It sounds like it took a long time for Walker to calm down, considering shootaround and pregame were times in which he was seething from this confrontation.
He was the No. 9 pick of the 1996 draft in which Kobe was the 13th pick. Walker played for Dallas and San Antonio before signing with the Lakers in the summer of 2001. With this happening before a road game in Cleveland in 2002, it occurred before a seven-point victory over the Cavs in February of that year (Walker's first season with the team). Kobe had 32 points that night to lead the Lakers over Ricky Davis' 19 points for the Cavs.
Walker didn't play in that game and would leave to sign with Miami in the summer of 2003.
