LeBron James Says Kobe Bryant Was In His Body During Dunk
LeBron James and Kobe Bryant did the same dunk on the same basket 19 years apart.
In a game against Houston on Thursday, James jumped off his left foot, gripped the ball with both hands and swept it with outstretched arms from the right side of his face around his lower body and made a two-handed reverse jam.
Bryant had done the same dunk nearly two decades earlier in a game against the Sacramento Kings in 2001. The Lakers' social media team spliced together a video of the dunks and even James was awestruck by their eerily mirroring movements and mechanics.
"Ever see the movie 'The 6th Man'?" James asked reporters Friday after the Lakers' 125-120 win over Golden State. "Kobe came down, put himself in my body and gave me that dunk on that break."
James said he had seen Bryant do that dunk before, but it wasn't on his mind heading into Thursday's game. After James jumped, the jam took on a life of its own.
"To now [have it] be a part of my history between that correlation between me and Kobe, that play, I think it's pretty, pretty, pretty awesome," James said. "I'm glad I did it in a Laker uniform."
NBA Hall-of-Fame photographer Andrew D. Bernstein captured an already iconic photo of that dunk, with James midair, legs crossed, flying upward toward the hoop.
"When I saw it for the first time, I was like, 'Holy s***, that is an unbelievable photo,'" James said. "And then when I found out how it was taken -- Andy literally had one snap on his remote to get that, and when I saw the video of it, when I was in the air, you can see the flash in the background. I was like, 'Oh, that is ... He's the real MVP, for sure.'"
James shared the image on Instagram and said his mother "was ecstatic" about it. James added that he's going to hang a copy of the photograph in his home.
"That moment, it's like I'm walking on air," James said.
Ironically, James said his son, Bronny, did a similar dunk during his pregame warmup before Sierra Canyon played Long Island Lutheran on Saturday.
"Kobe is in all of us right now," James said.
