Kobe Bryant Death: Former Laker Regrets Not Squashing Beef With 'Black Mamba'

A former Los Angeles Lakers guard regrets not being able to end his beef with the late Kobe Bryant.

Smush Parker cherished the short-lived popularity he gained in his two years with the Los Angeles Lakers alongside Bryant. The duo has once played phenomenal basketball and in fact, they still own the record for most combined points by a starting backcourt-duo in NBA history with 94 points.

However, Parker and Bryant never really got along well during their Laker days. The said beef went on even after Parker retired from the NBA.

In 2012, Bryant stated that Parker was the “worst teammate he’s ever had” and that he shouldn’t have been in the NBA, Open Court reported.

“He told me one day at practice — I tried to talk to him outside of basketball about football. And he looked at me in practice and was dead serious and said, ‘You can’t talk to me. You need more accolades under your belt before you come talk to me,” Parker said about Bryant.

But Parker seems to have viewed Bryant’s statement from a different light following the legend’s tragic death. In his lengthy post on Instagram, Parker revealed how he truly regrets not having a chance to talk out their differences and finally squash their beef.

“The toughest pill to swallow on today for me has been the fact that I didn’t get a chance to verbally speak with my brother to not only reconcile our differences but to find out if he actually had a relationship with The Lord Almighty. As today proves no matter how successful we are in life, when God calls for His breathe back our time here on earth is up. And if we don’t invest our time wisely here on earth, our life in eternity can be a very bad ordeal,” Parker wrote.

Aside from Parker, the other former Laker who famously had feud with Bryant is none other than his championship partner Shaquille O’Neal. Just recently, a torn O'Neal broke down in tears as they were discussing Bryant on NBA on TNT. “Shaq” recalled the things he and Bryant had been through and despite what the feud looked like in public, “The Diesel” explained it was all love between them behind-the-scenes.

"The fact that we're not gonna be able to joke at his Hall of Fame ceremony, we're not gonna be able to say, 'Haha, I got 5 (championships), you got 4,' the fact that we're not gonna be able to say, 'If we would've stayed together, we could've got 10,’ those were the things you can't get back," O’Neal said.