Shannon Sharpe Tears Into Kobe Bryant’s Parents For Selling Championship Rings

Shannon Sharpe has voiced his disgust that Kobe Bryant’s parents sold the late NBA legend’s championship rings. Sharpe found the decision distasteful, greedy, and disrespectful. Furthermore, Sharpe noted that his mother “wouldn’t get another dime from me ever again” if she sold any of his memorabilia. However, Sharpe finds himself at the opposite end of the issue to Gilbert Arenas. Arenas has defended the parents of Kobe Bryant from critics, such as Sharpe, who have taken issue with their decision to sell their son’s championship rings. “They broke. They got no money. You can’t be mad because they’re selling the rings. The money wasn’t left to them. They tryna eat,” Arenas argued. While Kobe’s will has never been made public, it is believed that almost all of his money went to his wife Vanessa.

Of course, that decision in itself has been criticized online. Dr. Umar took aim at Vanessa last year for not spending the money she inherited on the Black community. Umar pointed to a “sports initiative” that Bryant recently started with “six predominantly white colleges”. Umar’s anger came as a result of Bryant not “choosing a single HBCU”. Umar was referring to the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation. In September, the foundation announced partnerships with UConn, USC, Kentucky, Oregon, Duke, and LSU. Of note – UConn was seen as the frontrunner in the recruitment of Gigi Bryant before her death.

Kobe Bryant Statue Outside Crypto.Com Arena Revealed To Contain Glaring Typos

Elsewhere, the recently unveiled statue of Kobe Bryant outside Crypto.com Arena has been revealed to contain several egregious typos. German basketball journalist Andre “Dre” Voigt published photos on social media showing that the engraving of the box score for Kobe’s 81-point game was riddled with errors. Jose Calderon’s name is misspelled as “Calderson”. Von Wafer’s name is misspelled as “Vom”. Finally, an instance of Coach’s Decision is misspelled as “decicion”. A subsequent report by ESPN noted that the Lakers had been made aware of the errors and would rectify them in the near future.

The statue, just the eighth in Lakers history, was unveiled on February 8 as part of a larger celebration to commemorate the team legend. The Lakers also wore their Kobe-designed Black Mamba jersey variant for the first time since Kobe’s death in early 2020.

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