Kobe Bryant: from Lakers to La Liga

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Strife in the Lakers’ locker room?

Just kidding.

The (mostly) happy little family seems to have confined their differences to arguing about the merits of La Liga, the top soccer league in Spain.

Kobe Bryant is a FC Barcelona man, as is Pau Gasol.

‘... He keeps me in the loop,’ Bryant told ESPN The Magazine. ‘I follow games on the Internet, and even when we don’t have time to watch, we talk about the team. Sasha Vujacic likes Madrid, so that leads to a lot of smack-talk in the locker room.’

Naturally, Bryant is on the cover of the latest magazine. In a brief interview about his love of soccer and Barca, he spoke about growing up in Italy and playing soccer as a child.

No arguing with his eventual career choice, of course, but Bryant can always wonder if he would have meshed with Lionel Messi.

-- Lisa Dillman