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The Los Angeles Lakers are not letting their poor record on the court dissuade them from doing good work off of it. Earlier this season, the team facilitated a post-game meeting between Kobe Bryant and a child from the Make-A-Wish foundation on a night when they donated $1,000 to the charity organization for each Lakers dunk. The Lakers continued their work with the organization on Sunday when they signed Yitzi Teichman to an honorary one-day contract to grant his wish, according to Eric Pincus of the L.A. Times.
Yitzi was diagnosed with "a very rare form of cancer called Chordoma, which is a type of brain tumor, which only 1 in every 2.5 million people have," per his Team Lifeline page. As a member of the team for the day, Teichman was given the opportunity to participate in the Lakers' pre-game shootaround, where he got to take a picture with Lakers forward Julius Randle:
Here's a photo of Yitzi Teichman with Julius Randle - Yitzi signing a ceremonial 1-day contract w/ the Lakers today pic.twitter.com/koTxZU31ML
— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) January 31, 2016
The Lakers' newest signing was also introduced before the local media with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, and he had jokes:
Here's Mitch Kupchak signing Make-A-Wish recipient, Yitzi Tiechman, to a 1-day contract. https://t.co/VoAHEuuWbb
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) February 1, 2016
During Make-A-Wish recipient signing. Lakers GM Kupchak said kid joked, "It would be hard for me not to improve your team."
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) February 1, 2016
Kobe also did something nice on Sunday, filming a video letting Colorado State forward Emmanuel Omogbo know that he was thinking of him after he lost his parents in a house fire earlier this week. (h/t Sporting News). Omogbo memorably played in a game less than two days after the tragedy:
Shout out to @kobebryant for reaching out and I appreciate it pic.twitter.com/iTYxlKphxI
— IG: Eomogbo_15 (@longmoney_e) January 31, 2016
It's really cool to see the Lakers still taking the time to make people's lives better in a lost season. Some things are bigger than basketball.
You can follow this author on Twitter at @hmfaigen.