Kobe Bryant To Teammates: ‘We're Soft Like Charmin!’

Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant continued with his venting on the frustrating Lakers season during practice Wednesday. The 36-year-old starting shooting guard was held out of practice the previous weeks to rest his knee, but the former league Most Valuable Player joined a full scrimmage with his teammates and the outcome was not palatable.

According to media present during the practice, Bryant had some epic trash-talking with bench player Nick Young and continually berated other players such as point guard Jeremy Lin and center Jordan Hill. At one point, Bryant reportedly dared Lin to take a wide open jumper after he gave him the room to shoot. The Harvard standout missed and Bryant was gloating about his ability to get into his teammate's head.

After the scrimmage, Young and the rest of the Lakers understood that it was just Bryant's means of motivating them. Young was quoted as saying that the kind of atmosphere Bryant effects "just brings out the best of practice, when you are going at it like that." To be fair, it was Young who set the fire in the five-time NBA champion when he declared that nobody on Earth could guard him. Kobe had a quotable comeback to his declaration, saying that he is from another planet and began showing off how "soft" his teammates are. Bryant was apparently so pumped up that even on his way to the locker room he mouthed some expletive laden catchphrases to general manager Mitch Kupchak as tweeted by Mike Bresnahan.

Kobe yelled to Kupchak while leaving practice court: "These (expletives) aren't doing (expletive) for me." Didn't think team practiced hard.

— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) December 11, 2014

It is unclear if there is any lingering effects of the latest incident to the play of the Lakers. Coach Byron Scott has already shook up the team's starting line-up by putting in Ed Davis and Ronnie Price for Carlos Boozer and Lin. Given that the team recorded a home win over the Sacramento Kings in their last outing, their opponent was missing the services of its best player, DeMarcus Cousins. Now, NBA talk is ripe that Scott is considering putting the point guard duties on Bryant full time and parade a no-starting point guard line-up. Whatever transpires, expect Bryant to continue to use his bravado to challenge his teammates to turn-around the 2015 season. In any case, Scott thinks it is good for the team as a whole whenever Bryant is always fired up.

"Any time (No.) 24 practices, it's going to be an intense practice. I think he brings out the best in the guys. It's a good way to start the trip ... I don't think anything irritated him. I just think he did a great job of getting everyone else fired up," Scott told ESPN Los Angeles.