The remaining Los Angeles Lakers players wrote their own poem in response to Kobe Bryant’s poem, in which he announced his retirement.

———

Dear Kobe,

From the moment

You started shooting this season

After you had no interest in meeting us

or trying to recruit talent

We knew one thing was real:

You need to go. Immediately.

Nothing against your legacy

Nothing against you as a person

You just make it so that we can’t win basketball games

Therefore our jobs are meaningless.

We were six year olds too

Dreaming of winning basketball games

Not being part of a better-paid Washington Generals.

We’ve played through your airballs and turnovers

We’ve passed you the ball knowing you’d miss

Not because we wanted to

But because YOU kept shouting for the ball

Barking “I got it! I’m Kobe Bryant!”

We did that for YOU

Also because if we didn’t, we might get fired.

You made us all want to play basketball

and we will always love you for that

But, Christ, you said yourself that you aren’t a good basketball player

This season will be garbage because of you

Our fans can take another bad season

The franchise will continue to make money

But OUR CAREERS are dependent on having good stats, particularly

+/- ratings, and you chucking shots, not passing the ball, and blowing

games makes it impossible for us to negotiate future contracts.

And that’s NOT OK

You need to let go.

You have so much money.

And some of us wont have jobs after this season.

And we both know, no matter what we say

You will play out the rest of this season

And take 20 minutes waving to the crowd after shooting 3-45

Zero assists

Or, God forbid, being on the court during crunch time

Ball in your hands

5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1

Stop the bleeding,

The Rest Of The 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers

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