NBA Basketball News: ‘What The F**k Just Happened’ – Gilbert Arenas Shares Candid Reaction To Hearing about Kobe Bryant Accident

Published 05/14/2021, 5:28 AM EDT

This weekend, Kobe Bryant will be permanently enshrined in the basketball annals. Bryant will enter the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, five years after he called time on his career. It is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest players in NBA history. Michael Jordan, the player who inspired Kobe and his game, will have the honor of inducting him. But people are still recovering from his tragic passing last year.

Gilbert Arenas couldn’t believe it when Kobe passed away

Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas was a guest on ‘All The Smoke’ recently. Arenas spoke about the day he found about Kobe Bryant passing away in an accident. Arenas was working on another project when he heard the news. Once he heard what had happened, he was in total shock and could barely believe it. It was a surreal moment for Arenas, who didn’t understand how something like that could happen.

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Arenas said, “I’m on the couch, I got a text. It was like ‘Kobe died’. I was like… ‘Kobe who?’ Kobe Bryant… I said you don’t play with stuff like that, f*ck out of here bruh. And then I’m like ‘why would he say some shit like that?’ … I go on the internet, and then I’m just sitting there like ‘Calabasas? Nah, that ain’t Calabasas. He doesn’t even live in Calabasas, why would he be in Calabasas?’… Thirty minutes later it came out (news about GiGi), and I’m like ‘what the f*ck just happened?’”

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Kobe Bryant was a hero to many

Arenas’ reaction to the news about Kobe Bryant was similar to what several fans and players felt. The world stood still when Kobe passed away. Bryant was an inspiration to a generation of players and fans. To see someone who was finding so much success in their second act to suddenly go away was a crushing realization for people.

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This weekend, Kobe Bryant will be one of the inductees into the 2020 class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He joins Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett as part of the class. The three players defined the 2000s with their amazing play and became champions during the first decade of the century. So it is fitting that these three be memorialized together.

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Aaditya Krishnamurthy is an NBA & NFL journalist for EssentiallySports, before which he worked at BusinessWorld magazine. He has been a fan of Basketball for over 10 years now, since Shaquille O’Neal was a Phoenix Suns player. During his time at Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, he started a sports magazine for the college called the Overtime Tribune and hosted the Overtime Tribune Podcast until he graduated.

NBA Basketball News: ‘What The F**k Just Happened’ – Gilbert Arenas Shares Candid Reaction To Hearing about Kobe Bryant Accident

Gilbert Arenas couldn’t believe it when Kobe passed away

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Kobe Bryant was a hero to many