Nick Young, former teammate of Kobe Bryant, broke into Bryant’s locker in the Staples Center and stole his knee pads during a tournament in college.
It was the start of the Pac-10 (now the Pac-12) tournament and Young was playing for USC. He stole two knee pads out of Kobe’s locker and wore them during the opening game. They looked out of place, seeing as USC’s colors are cardinal and gold and the knee pads were purple.
Young explained the story on the Certified Buckets podcast earlier this week: “But the tournament is at the Staples Center, and we had the Lakers’ locker room. So, I just remember telling ‘Nobody can sit in Kobe Bryant’s seat but me.’ I don’t want to be snitching on myself, but I broke into his locker, the underneath part. I took like two knee pads. They was purple. Our uniform was cardinal and gold. And I played with them. I said, ‘I’m Kobe today y’all. I stole his knee pads.’ So, if you look at our first game at Staples Center, I got purple knee sleeves on. I thought I was Kobe… I thought I was going to get in trouble, but they let me slide.”
One fan on Twitter found a picture of Young during the game.