Advertisement

NBA impersonator's Kobe impression gets Mamba seal of approval

Dan Devine
·Senior NBA writer

Ever since he vaulted into the Internet basketball community's consciousness when his spot-on impression of Russell Westbrook went viral — with a helping hand from the Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star himself — hooper/comedian Brandon Armstrong (a.k.a. @BdotAdot5) has been riding high. The 25-year-old former D-League guard has continued to gain fans and followers with each successive drop, leaving viewers rolling with his impersonations of Tim Duncan, James Harden and Paul Pierce.

Armstrong took a chance when taking aim at his latest subject, though. Kobe Bryant and his legions of fans can tend to be a bit prickly when someone pokes fun at the Mamba, no matter how accurate the pokes might be:

[Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]

As luck would have it, though, the Los Angeles Lakers legend offered the clip a hearty thumbs up:

[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football: Sign up and join a league today!]

Of course Kobe liked what he saw. The future Hall of Famer's a stickler for attention to detail, and Armstrong nailed everything from the wrist-snap and leg-lean on the fallaway to the angle of his feet when Kobe's pulling on his shorts ... and even that gross jersey-suck.

Not that it's a shocker that Armstrong aced the specifics, of course. He's been preparing for some version of this for quite a while, as he noted in a recent interview with Sean Gentille of the Sporting News (emphasis mine):

BA: Yeah, Rasheed. I have a little Michael Jordan shtick that I know will be funny. I have something for Dennis Rodman. I think that'll be funny with the hair and just how he dives everywhere. I've got a couple old-school players. I wanna get attention from the old-school market so my older fellas, my older market, they'll be able to relate.

Hey, identical is identical, even when it comes to impersonations.

- - - - - - -

Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, "Like" BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.