If you don't think Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers is serious about testing the warm Italian waters of the Mediterranean, maybe this latest Nike commercial will give you some pause. Bryant seems perfectly at home and is ready to turn on that marketing machine for the land where he grew up.
(HT to Kurt Helin of Pro Basketball Talk for digging this one up.)
Let's not forget that his nickname the Black Mamba is based off a revenge flick that has Italian spaghetti western influences. This trailer seems to parody many of those characteristics.
Bryant probably doesn't have quite the presence he would have in a land like China, but Italy does have a decent love of basketball that appears to be growing year-by-year, and it would be fitting if he became the country's most prominent ambassador in his post basketball life.
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