Kobe Bryant: I Would’ve ‘Smacked The Hell’ Out Of Mike Rice

Kobe Bryant would have “smacked the hell” out of Mike Rice if he was playing for Rutgers.

The LA Lakers star has been pretty vocal about the Mike Rice scandal. After a video surfaced of the Rutgers coach abusing his players on the basketball court, Bryant took to Twitter to call the Rice a bully and not a coach.

Today, Bryant was asked by Jim Rome about how he would have handled the situation if he was on the team. Bryant responded: “I would’ve smacked the hell out of him. No question about it.”

Getting physically violent with a physically violent coach probably isn’t the best idea and would have probably ended with someone getting seriously hurt. Kobe admitted that smacking the hell out of Rice would not have been the most productive option but added that that’s the way it probably would have went down.

Bryant added: “Probably wouldn’t have been the best way to react to it. But that’s how I would have reacted… Everyone was trying to do the right thing… But just holding your tongue and not saying anything. You can’t do that. You can’t take that abuse.”

Rome added that Bryant faced an even more fearsome foe when he was college aged. Bryant didn’t play college ball but he did stand toe to toe with Shaq when he was about 19 years old.

Kobe said: “Like I said. I was going at it with Shaq. You think I would have let a coach throw a ball at my head? Not a chance.”

Here’s the video of Kobe Bryant talking about how he would have handled the Mike Rice situation.

This isn’t the first time that Kobe has commented on Mike Rice’s coaching. After Rice was fired, Kobe wrote on Twitter that Rutgers was employing a bully and not a coach.

That’s not #coaching that’s a power trip #rutgersbasketball . At a minimum it’s horrible coaching #coachdontbully

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) April 4, 2013