NBA superstar Kobe Bryant makes a brief cameo in a television commercial for the current No. 1 video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops. In the commercial, Bryant is seen for a couple of seconds shooting off a rifle.
Apparently, that is enough for ESPN analysts to get up in arms.
"Well, I'm offended by it and I'm pretty sure a bunch of NBA fans will be offended by it," Skip Bayless ranted on ESPN programming yesterday.
I've had one direct encounter with Bayless in my life. As a high school senior in 1994, I attended a journalism workshop where Bayless, then with the Dallas Morning News, was a speaker.
I thought I could never hear him say something as nuts as what he said that day, when he told a room full of high school students nearing graduation that if they had learned to throw a ball they could have made far more money in the real world.
It took a while, but here it is.
Bayless states that Bryant should be punished by the NBA for appearing in this commercial, as we have real soldiers in real wars right now.
"Does Kobe Bryant really need this money, this badly?” said Bayless. “Doesn’t he have a couple of daughters, last time I checked? He is smiling while wielding an assault rifle in combat, while we have troops overseas at this moment, doing the same thing for real.”
Bayless then continues, showing he knows nothing of who is really out there playing and buying this game.
"[NBA Commissioner Stern] can’t stop kids from buying video games,” Bayless said. “But he can stop his most popular player from participating with an assault rifle.”
As a sportswriter that has also been a die-hard video gamer for 29 yea...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
