Happy yet Kobe?

Kobe Bryant told reporters the other day, "I have to take my hat off to Dr. [Jerry] Buss and Mitch [Kupchak] for going forward with this."

That is pretty amusing to say the least! Wasn't this the guy that was demanding Andrew Bynum be "shipped" out and that he himself also needed to be traded? I can still clearly hear his depressed little voice on the Stephen A. Smith show when he said he was "done" in L.A. I can also remember the next day when he went on the Dan Patrick show to sort of, slip back away from that initial statement. He slipped so far off that statement that he and the rest of us have almost completely forgotten it!

Everyone in Lakerland is happy as can be these days! Kobe has finally made teammates better and has also received a brand new running mate in Pau Gasol. Haven't we all penciled the Lakers into the NBA Finals already? And won't they be taking on the Boston Celtics in what should be a match up for the ages?

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if that actually happens especially if the Suns wrap up a deal with Kobe's nemesis. It feels pretty good to have a trade deadline that includes a few blockbusters!

The Nike Zoom Kobe III

The Nike Zoom Kobe III's will be released sometime in February (around the 8th) and the pictures of the various color schemes are starting to dominate the internet shoe sites. Rice High School, a Nike Kobe sponsored program, just received their specific colorway's with black patent, green cage, yellow mesh, and a dominant yellow swoosh. The shoe looks great, but these high school releases have a reputation of never being released to the public. I actually saw some guy spamming a forum telling the world he'd pay $1000 for them!

These new ZKIII's have been receiving all kinds of mixed reactions. All I know is this should be one of the lightest shoes ever made, and Kobe's actually been wearing these, unlike the Kobe II.

Kobe ran a special pre-release of the shoe on December 22nd at the House of Hoops in Harlem and in China where he revealed the new shoe and also gave a few lucky fans a chance to purchase the limited edition ZKIII "China." I believe he even autographed a couple pairs; still not sure why he couldn't just give a few away!