Accused rapist Kobe Bryant penned an article for The Players’ Tribune, Derek Jeter’s un-checked athlete blog that allows players and their publicists to write or re-write their own history, about his murderous obsession with Allen Iverson after he saw Iverson scored 35 against the Knicks in 1996 on the same night that Kobe scored two points in Houston. Kobe claims he broke his hotel room TV and threw tables and chairs. Sure.

In 1999, after Iverson dropped 41 and 10 on Bryant and the Lakers, Kobe went full predator:

Working harder wasn’t enough.

I had to study this man maniacally.

I obsessively read every article and book I could find about AI. I obsessively watched every game he had played, going back to the IUPU All-American Game. I obsessively studied his every success, and his every struggle. I obsessively searched for any weakness I could find.

I searched the world for musings to add to my AI Musecage.

This led me to study how great white sharks hunt seals off the coast of South Africa.

The patience. The timing. The angles.

On Feb 20, 2000, in Philadelphia, PJ gave me the assignment of guarding AI at the start of the second half. No one knew how much this challenge meant to me.

I wanted him to feel the frustration I felt.

I wanted everyone who laughed at the 41 and 10 he put on me to choke on their laughter.

Interesting use of choke, for Kobe.

Bryant held AI to 16 points that night, and this made for a quaint little ending to his article which is actually just a promotion for a sports drink (hey, at least he’s not trying to sell you a gym). He could’ve also mentioned the various alt endings– the one where Iverson scored only 15 and Bryant scored only 10 in a matchup later that year, or the one where Iverson dropped 40, 48, 23, 35, 35, 37 and 31 on the Lakers throughout the 2001 calendar year. But hey, facts. Here’s the video of Iverson dropping the 41 on the Lakers in 1999:

Side note: I actually respect the hell out of this sort of obsession. Just not Kobe Bryant.