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Former NBA player Smush Parker allegedly punches teen recruit in pickup basketball

Former Lakers player Smush Parker allegedly punched Brooklyn Poly Prep point guard Wolfgang Novogratz in a pickup game. (Getty Images/Facebook)

One you may remember as the former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant once describe as "the worst," and the other is a Division I boys' basketball recruit better known for his appearances on reality television. The two met in a New York City pickup game last week, and the former punched the latter squarely in the face.

According to the New York Post, Brooklyn native Smush Parker allegedly assaulted Brooklyn Poly Prep's Wolfgant Novogratz after the sophomore point guard delivered a hard foul on the exiled NBA player.

“Wolfie scored back-to-back baskets on Smush,” a source told the Post. “At the other end, Smush went up for a shot. There was a hard foul, and they both went down. Smush got up and punched Wolfie in the face.”

Novogratz visited the hospital, but "was fine" and does not plan to press charges, according to the Post. He is the son of HGTV personalities Robert and Cortney Novogratz and has appeared with his parents and six siblings on Bravo's "9 by Design" and HGTV's "Home by Novogratz."

He's also a 6-foot-2, 185-pound point guard for Joakim Noah's high school alma mater in Brooklyn, and he already owns reported scholarship offers from Northwestern, Rutgers and Villanova

Parker, meanwhile, played just 19 games after his 2008 release from the Heat stemming from an altercation with a parking attendant. He is perhaps best known as the player Bryant once called "the worst. He shouldn't have been in the NBA but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. So we let him walk on."