What Chris Rock Said to Kobe

David Spade finally got asked about the courtside moment. Rich had been saving it. The clip that travels around every few months, Spade and Chris Rock sitting on the Lakers bench, Rock leaning in and talking at Kobe Bryant, Kobe staring straight ahead, locked in.

Spade walked through what actually happened. William Morris, his agency, would sometimes get the floor seats, the ones right next to the Lakers bench. Not next to. On the bench. Spade said the seats are so close players' chairs bump into yours, and he and Rock would switch spots at halftime so each got a turn sitting next to the team.

One of those nights, Spade and Rock were seated right next to Kobe. Rock started talking. Spade described it as Rock in comedian mode, just being funny, giving Kobe a fake pep talk, throwing out stupid stuff.

"You got to pace it out," Spade remembered Rock saying. Then: "I think it's going to be zone after this."

Kobe didn't respond. Spade said Kobe blocked him out completely. Mamba mentality. Spade laughed because it was exactly the thing you're not supposed to do, talk to a comedian during his stand-up act, or in this case, talk to Kobe Bryant with ten seconds left while the Lakers were figuring out how to get him the ball.

Spade admits he also tried to talk to Kobe. Kobe, he said shockingly, was more into the game than into David Spade and Chris Rock.

He added one more wrinkle. The courtside seats are closer than people realize. Splinters close. He mentioned his friend, director David O. Russell, getting hit so hard by a player colliding with the bench that Russell ended up in the Lakers' in-arena medical center. Spade didn't even know the Lakers had an ambulance underneath the building. They do.

The second half of the conversation pivoted to SNL. Spade came up in the class with Rock, Chris Farley, Rob Schneider, and, a few months later, Adam Sandler. Rock and Spade still see each other all the time. Spade's Hollywood Minute update segment came out of his habit of making fun of the People magazine celebrity-worship ecosystem. Lorne Michaels told him to keep doing it. So he did, for a couple of years, until he started making movies himself and felt weird aiming at his own.