Once You Go Black Mamba....

Just this Wednesday, LA Lakers' Kobe Bryant was here. I'm not really a huge basketball fan ( I was when it was during the Bulls' era) but seeing Kobe in the flesh was pretty exciting.

I was with my Associate Editor France when we saw him first at his presscon in the Manila Peninsula. There were tons of press there asking him all sorts of questions from the NBA lockout (which was a bit inappropriate since it concerns money and politics in their industry meeehhh...but Kobe answered anyway) to his injured knee, from the food that he tasted here to the secret of his success ("practice, practice, practice" he said). France asked something about his dad being a coach for another basketball league which he answered really nicely saying that he's absolutely excited about the fact that his dad is coaching since he's a huge role model for him. Me, being a non-practicing basketball fan asked him about how was is working with Kanye West (yes, he worked with Kanye, Bruce Willis and a few other guest stars for this Black Mamba ad directed by Robert Rodriguez). I got his reply on video (actually we had the entire presscon on video, I'll be posting clips of it here soon) but basically he said that it was nice working with Kanye since they've been friends for years. He even visited him in his studio while he was working on his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album.

Every time Kobe would look our way, the giddy woman in me would just wave at him and being the nice celebrity athlete that he is, he would just smile and wave back (I had about 3 smiles and 3 waves from him hahaha yes, I counted!).
After the presscon, we headed to the Fort where he visited the Nike store and had a really short program just to say hello to his fans.

Immediately after, we went straight to the Araneta Coliseum where there was an exhibition gave by the UAAP all stars vs the Smart Gilas. Kobe was just watching at first but when the 20 min game was over he approached a few people who were at the panel and asked to have an 8 min game with him playing with the UAAP all stars. The hosts said that he has never done this before so much to the delight of everybody it was ooonnnn!!! He wore an FEU jersey (yellow jersey = LA Laker...yep! bastaaaa...) and just did a heck of a job playing with everyone at the court.

But amidst the dunks and the 3 points, Smart Gilas still won but of course the highlight of everybody's night there was the fact Kobe did play. He sure did entertained the heck out of me.

I don't know how to write that good but I like Kobe Bryant! MJ, you'll always be in my heart, but Kobe will do for now ;)