Kobe Bryant’s "Fourth Place" Photo

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About

Kobe Bryant’s "Fourth Place" Photo refers to an Instagram post by former professional basketball player Kobe Bryant with the child basketball team he coaches. Many have interpreted Bryant's caption for the photograph as explicitly mocking his team. Bryant has since denied that that was his intention.

Origin

On September 11th, 2019, Kobe Bryant posted a photograph of himself with the child basketball team he coaches.^[1] No one in the photograph is smiling. He captioned the post:

Here’s our fourth place “winners” picture lol six of the kids in the picture stayed with me and worked every single day to get better and continue to work to this day. The 7th player (not in pic) missed this game for a dance recital so that should tell you where her focus was at this time, From this original group of 7 we have added a player TWO years YOUNGER (6th grade now), a player who’s team in our area folded and a player who’s family moved here from Tennessee. The beauty of coaching is growing the players from the ground up. That journey continues #mambas #2yearsago

Within 24 hours, the post received more than 286,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

Following the post, people reacted negatively to Bryant's criticism. Twitter^[2] user @kharigold tweeted a screenshot of the post with the caption, "yeah kobe a maniac lmfao." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 48,000 likes and 10,000 retweets (shown below, left).

Throughout the day, others joked about Bryant's comments, accusing him of being too hard on his players.

Bryant responded to one of the complaints, writing,^[3] "Nah fam I was just explaining why she wasn’t in the pic. Most of my kids on the team played and still play other sports including my daughter so it’s all love. Don’t misunderstand the message."

He later clarified the post and updated the text to read, "The 7th player (not in pic) missed this game for a dance recital so that should tell you where her focus was at this time, meaning she enjoyed dance more than ball which is fine. Now? She eats sleeps breaths the game."

He also wrote,^[4] "That wasn't shade. She enjoyed dancing more than hooping at that time and there's nothing wrong with that. Just point out that ball wasn't the primary focus. Now? She LOVES basketball."

He later posted a video of himself dancing at age 12. He wrote, "When I was 12, I skipped basketball for two weeks so I could dance in a school show. I’m all about diversifying while young, then locking in on your passion." The post received more than 1.3 million views and 400,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the post, including Fox News, ^[5] Yahoo,^[6] Deadspin,^[7] Complex,^[8] TMZ^[9] and more.