Kobe Bryant has never been interested in making friends. He’s always made that very clear.
But he did go out of his way to send some kind words to Kevin Ware, the Louisville guard who suffered one of the most grotesque injuries in recent sports history Sunday against Duke in the Midwest Regional Final.
In the spirit of April Fools, Bryant was duped by a fake Kevin Ware twitter account — KevinWare_5 — to which he directed his wishes to get well.
How somebody could make fun of as serious and sad a situation as Ware’s is beyond me, and thanks to his 1.8 million followers letting him know about his mistake, the Black Mamba did not think so either. He had this to say today:
Unfortunately The Fake Kevin Ware twitter account has already accumulated over 26,000 followers in the last 24 hours — reaching new lows with each and every post — and has only received an immense boost in publicity thanks to Bryant.
But despite the inhumane behavior Ware’s injury has inspired, he has also been the beneficiary of praise from athletes, celebrities and fans all over. And not only was Louisville able to rally behind his inspirational words and reach the Final Four, but Ware has already undergone a successful surgery on his broken leg and is up and walking with crutches.
Ware will remain in Indianpolis until at least Tuesday, and rehab is expected to take one year.
“Hopefully I’ll be back in time to watch practice,” Ware told ESPN.com by phone Monday. “It hurts but I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
“I jumped and my leg felt kind of funny,” he said. “When Coach P tried to help me up, he gave me a funny kind of look. I’m looking at him and then I look down and I see my bone sticking out. It wasn’t a hurt feeling. I just went into shock. In the moment, you don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’re just looking, thinking, ‘How did this happen?’ I never watched the replay. I never want to.”
Louisville Coach Rick Pitino and Richard Pitino visit guard Kevin Ware at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis today twitter.com/KKcards/status…
— Kenny Klein (@KKcards) April 1, 2013
Louisville G Kevin Ware up and moving on crutches today after surgery to repair a broken leg yesterday #L1C4 twitter.com/KKcards/status…
— Kenny Klein (@KKcards) April 1, 2013
Louisville holds up Ware’s jersey as they celebrate their win twitter.com/BleacherReport…
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 31, 2013
Ben Baroff is a basketball journalist who blogs for SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter here.