Smush Parker: I stopped passing to terrible teammate Kobe Bryant

Smush Parker fired back at ex-teammate Kobe Bryant. (Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)

Former Los Angeles Lakers point guard Smush Parker called Kobe Bryant a bad teammate and claimed he stopped passing the superstar the ball, on Hard 2 Guard Internet radio and TMZ.

Bryant yesterday ripped Parker's lack of talent, going so far as to saying the point guard cost Bryant the 2005-06 MVP trophy to new teammate Steve Nash.

"I tell Steve, you won MVP but I was playing with Smush Parker," Bryant said before the Lakers' 93-75 exhibition loss Wednesday to the Portland Trail Blazers at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario. "He's playing with [Leandro] Barbosa. I'm playing with Smush and Kwame [Brown]. My goodness.

"Smush Parker was the worst," Bryant said. "He shouldn't have been in the NBA, but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. We let him walk on."

Parker fired back on Thursday:

“What I don’t like about him is the man that he is. His personality. How he treats people. I don’t like that side of Kobe Bryant….

“The reason I wasn’t a Laker after my second year is because I didn’t bow down to [Kobe]. I didn’t kiss his a–. I wasn’t kissing his feet. Quite frankly, towards the end of the second season, I stopped passing him the ball. I stopped giving him the ball. I started looking him off.”