Kobe Bryant A No-Show For All-Star Interview

For 45 minutes media members awaited Kobe Bryant’s arrival at his scheduled All-Star interview session in Orlando before finally being told the Lakers superstar was sick. Without anything further being said that is the official reason yet Bryant was in attendance for a global announcement for Sprite soft drink.

Make of that whatever you will. My guess is Mamba will be good to go for the game Sunday.

Both Bryant and fellow L.A. All-Star Andrew Bynum were late arriving to the festivities in Orlando as the Lakers were busy getting handled by the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night.

Perhaps hoping to sneak in whatever rest he could Kobe pulled a Ferris Bueller. No doubt he and the rest of the players at All-Star weekend would love some real rest after dealing with the first half of the hectic NBA schedule.

Thus far no action has been taken by David Stern but I doubt he’d have anything to say of Bryant’s absence from the meaningless session. The NBA All-Star weekend is nothing more than a corporate marketing campaign for the NBA these days. Bryant’s absence from a media session isn’t going to cause nearly as big a stir had Jeremy Lin done the same. Such is the nature of the modern media.