He’s not going.
But when Kobe Bryant said the other day he had not talked to Beşiktaş officials in weeks, with his next breath he said he’d listen to offers — “I’m just waiting for my phone to ring.”
Now Beşiktaş is calling and the two sides will meet Thursday, according to multiple reports out of Turkey. The Turkish side of these talks has always been the leaky one and the one trying to milk the publicity, but it looks like the two sides will talk. Team President Yıldırım Demirören is flying to Los Angeles for the meeting.
I’m glad, because maybe when they finally do meet this sillyness can stop.
Deron Williams has already signed with Beşiktaş, and if Kobe were to sign overseas it would be some legitimate pressure on the owners — or at least the Buss family — to hurry the labor talks along. But it’s not going to happen. If you think Kobe — a man obsessed with winning and getting more rings for his collection, a man who wants to pass Jordan on the all time scoring list — is going to risk all that, risk serious injury and put more mileage on his body to play in Turkey for a team that’s not even in the EuroLeague, well then I have some land I want to sell you.
But the two sides will talk. Apparently Thursday in Los Angeles with Kobe’s agent Rob Pelinka in attendance. Good, talk and let’s put these rumors to bed.