Larry Nance Jr.'s career with the Los Angeles Lakers was only a few minutes old when a tweet he sent in 2012 about his new teammate Kobe Bryant went viral. In 2012, Nance was still a teenager and sent out a tweet which referenced a sexual assault case involving Bryant in Denver. Once the tweet came to light, Nance very quickly reached out to Bryant and apologized.
Bryant accepted Nance's apology and as he told ESPN's Jemele Hill, he was sympathetic to Nance's plight:
"The kid figured it out himself," Bryant said. "He's a kid, man. He actually sent me a great message [Friday], which is really funny. I looked at it [the message], and it was like, 'This is when you know it's about time to hang these things up, when your teammate writes you, Hi, Mr. Bryant.'
"I was like, 'What the f---?' But it was really nice and apologetic about what had happened. I said, 'Dude, listen. We've all said things and done things that we regret and wish we could take back. It's water under the bridge, man. Welcome to the team.' He writes back, 'Thank you, sir.'"
Bryant's quick acceptance of his apology, eased any fears Nance had but as he told reporters at a press conference yesterday, he was quite fearful of Bryant's response.
“I heard my named called with the 27th pick. It was about two minutes until I found out about that,” Nance said on Monday. “About 24 hours went past, I felt like I was going to throw up, sick to my stomach. I was just embarrassed in myself. I felt so bad about what I had said. I just wanted to apologize to him right away.”
“Once I got his number” Nance continued. "I made sure to write the best message I possibly could and sent it to him. But once I got the 'Hey, you're a kid. We've all said and done things, we've regretted. It's water under the bridge, welcome to the family.' I immediately felt my stomach release, there was a big knot. It was definitely something I'll learn from."
We can chalk this up as a youthful mistake by Nance. Mistakes like this happens to the best of us but unfortunately for Nance, his mistake became public and involved his superstar teammate, Kobe Bryant. This was a teachable moment for Nance and by all accounts it sounds like he has already learned a valuable lesson about social media at the start of his NBA career.
