{"id":442153,"date":"2010-03-17T15:32:32","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T19:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/my.lakers.com\/blogs\/?p=15996"},"modified":"2010-03-17T15:32:32","modified_gmt":"2010-03-17T19:32:32","slug":"kobe-speaks-of-dj%e2%80%99s-special-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/442153","title":{"rendered":"Kobe Speaks of DJ\u2019s Special Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"80391796MW074_Los_Angeles_L\"In our “Chat with Congo Cash<\/a>” earlier this week, DJ Mbenga addressed all kinds of topics from his nickname to fashion to Africa to nuggets about his Lakers teammates.<\/p>\n

Among his most interesting comments came as he detailed his donation of a basketball court in Kobe Bryant’s name to his native Democratic Republic of Congo:<\/p>\n

\n

I always say, when we talk about Michael Jordan we always set him apart. But people gotta realize now, it\u2019s not just Michael Jordan. It\u2019s Kobe too. I told him, \u201cI\u2019m going to give you the best gift you\u2019ve ever had \u2026 I\u2019m building a basketball court in Congo with your name on it. People they love you there. You helped me to get a ring, I\u2019m going to give you something back. I\u2019m going to give you a basketball court with your name \u2013 that\u2019s something nobody else can have. Even Michael Jordan never had that. I told him, \u201cYou\u2019re going to give people hope. There are kids that are stealing, killing, (doing drugs) \u2026 instead I want them to play basketball at the Kobe \u2026 Bryant \u2026 Court.\u201d It\u2019s going to be in Kinshasa*. They are going to start working on it in a couple of weeks. Everything\u2019s already been set up through my foundation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After L.A. defeated Golden State on Monday night, we had a chance to ask Kobe about the honor:<\/p>\n

\n

It makes me feel great. He told me he was going to have a surprise for me, and something he and I talk about often is visiting Congo and speaking to some of the kids. DJ and I have a really close relationship. This is a tremendous honor, something that I didn’t expect. (DJ does) a ton for (the people) over there. It’s something that people don’t hear about, but he doesn’t do it for the attention, he does it because it’s something that’s close to his heart. I absolutely have to (go visit).\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Follow Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) on Twitter<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our “Chat with Congo Cash” earlier this week, DJ Mbenga addressed all kinds of topics from his nickname to fashion to Africa to nuggets about his Lakers teammates. Among his most interesting comments came as he detailed his donation of a basketball court in Kobe Bryant’s name to his native Democratic Republic of Congo: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4162,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}