Kobe Bryant: 'I would have smacked the hell out of' Rutgers coach

Kobe Bryant wouldn't have put up with "abuse" from a coach like Rutgers' Mike Rice.

"I would have smacked the hell out of him," the Los Angeles Lakers star told Showtime's Jim Rome. "I mean, no question about it. ... It probably wouldn't have been the best way to react to it, but that's how I would have reacted."

Even at age 18?

"Oh, no question. I mean, just a year later I was going at with Shaq," he said, referring to the much bigger Shaquille O'Neill, then the Lakers center.

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Bryant skipped college, going from Lower Merion High directly to the NBA.

Rome had mentioned only how Rice threw basketballs at players, leaving out the shovings he was seen repeatedly delivering to players on a video compilation that resulted in his firing.

Those players didn't say anything or otherwise react, perhaps because they were "trying to do the right thing," Kobe said.

"That's abusive, man. You can't take that form of abuse. That's crazy," said Bryant, who last month passed Philly's Wilt Chamberlain to move into fourth place on the NBA's all-time scoring list.

Although Bryant, the son of former Sixers forward Joe Bryant, at one point said, "My parents didn't do nothing like that to me," he also said, "The only people that had the license to hit me was my mom with a belt."

"She ever do that?" Rome asked.

"Yeah, yeah, she did that," Bryant said, laughing.