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00:00 I'm Jill Painter Lopez for Sports Illustrated joined by Melissa Rowland.
00:08 And Melissa, Karan Butler had a little bit of addiction, not one of those super bad kinds,
00:12 but a little one that really bothered Kobe Bryant.
00:15 What happened between those two and what was it?
00:17 Well, Jill, according to Kobe, it was a really bad one.
00:21 Karan Butler was addicted to the soda Mountain Dew.
00:25 So on Zach Lowe's podcast, Karan Butler talked about how their first game that they played
00:30 together back in 2004, 2005, Kobe gave him a lot of compliments after the game said,
00:35 "Hey, your game looks really good."
00:37 But he pointed out that he looked a little sluggish out there.
00:40 And he asked Karan what fuel he was putting in his body.
00:43 And Karan said, "I don't know what you're talking about.
00:45 I eat so well."
00:46 So on the team bus later that night, Kobe's walking to the back and he catches Karan who
00:50 quickly tries to hide a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew.
00:54 And so Karan vows the rest of that season not to drink any more soda.
00:59 He ends up only playing for the Lakers one season going on to play for Washington where
01:02 he'd actually drink Mountain Dew in the third and fourth quarters of games.
01:06 That's how bad that self-proclaimed addiction was.
01:11 Karan obviously didn't learn to stay away from the soda from Kobe, but he learned a lot
01:15 of other things such as how to study defenses, how to pour yourself into something and how
01:21 to truly be the best version of yourself.