The Los Angeles Dodgers pulled out all of the stops for his or her Shohei Ohtani pitch. That included bringing again Kobe Bryant from the lifeless.
In keeping with a report from ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the late Lakers Corridor of Famer made a key video look in the course of the Dodgers’ presentation to Ohtani, telling the Angels dual-threat star that “there’s no higher place on this planet to win than Los Angeles, and there’s no higher staff in baseball to win with than the Dodgers.”
Bryant recorded the video as a favor to the staff again in 2017, when the Dodgers had been getting ready a recruitment plan for the then-Nippon Skilled Baseball switch.
“That was one of many highlights of the entire assembly,” Ohtani informed ESPN by way of his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. “I used to be actually shocked to see it. It was a robust and touching message.”
This isn’t, I don’t know, macabre to anybody else? Kobe Bryant has left a difficult legacy behind since his demise in a January 2020 helicopter crash. It appears the five-time NBA Champion is just remembered in flowery reminiscences and rose-tinted anecdotes: Loving father, sensible mentor, the final word competitor; these are the one methods you possibly can describe Bryant. However we all know that’s not the case.
This pitch simply took issues to a different degree. No matter humanity and identification Bryant had left posthumously has been stripped from him. He has simply grow to be this simulacrum for Los Angeles sports activities tradition and advertising. If the Dodgers hadn’t already recorded this six years in the past, it feels just like the type of video that may have been made with AI.
Hell, it was bizarre when Bryant recorded it in 2017. It’s at all times odd when athletes from different sports activities get entangled within the star recruitment. The yr earlier than the Dodgers had Bryant file that video, Tom Brady obtained concerned within the Boston Celtics’ recruitment of Kevin Durant. Brady’s involvement within the pitch is definitely what swayed Durant to ultimately be part of the Golden State Warriors. A shared metropolis doesn’t dictate tradition. Involving different gamers is simply an promoting tactic distracting from the team-specific particulars that actually matter.
Bryant’s video clearly wasn’t the one think about Ohtani’s choice to signal with the Dodgers. No different staff in baseball may supply him the record-setting $700 million contract. Los Angeles’ roster does supply Ohtani the perfect probability to win a hoop by advantage of pure expertise. Simply let Bryant relaxation.
