Sorry, lady: Kobe Bryant leaves hug-seeking fan hanging
Kobe Bryant's final season is unfolding as a drawn-out retirement tour, with introspective interviews and curtain calls galore as an all-time great makes the final road trips and plays the last home games of a legendary career.
But that doesn't mean he's just giving out free hugs. Come on now. One fan seated courtside learned this to embarrassing effect Wednesday night when Bryant left her hanging in a major way.
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After Bryant was removed late in the Lakers' 119-108 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, he graciously slapped hands with every member of the team, all the way down the bench.
At the end of the bench was this nice lady. She just wanted a hug from sweaty, stinky Kobe Bryant. Look how excited she is! But Mr. Bryant? Not in a hugging mood, apparently.
While the stat books will tell you as of Thursday morning that Bryant has 636 blocked shots in the NBA, we think it's fair game to call this his 637th career rejection.
But at least the fan now has her Vine moment. Unfortunately, like so many NBA defenders before her, her brush with greatness came on the wrong end of a Kobe isolation play.
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Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.
