Late Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant went through an impressive metamorphosis throughout his 20-year NBA career. He started out as a young gun who hungered for knowledge and instruction, and he then became the best player in the world for about a decade before evolving into an elder statesman and mentor.
In Bryant’s final season, D’Angelo Russell was a rookie with the Lakers. Russell was then thought to be immature, but the opportunity to team up with and be around the Black Mamba left a lasting impression on him.
While on the “Run your Race” podcast, Russell said that while Bryant’s advice went over his head at the time, it eventually reached him and sunk in.
“Great time. I mean, once again I was just naive to his whole legacy at that time,” said Russell. “I’m 18 bro, so I’m young and dumb. Everything’s funny. Kobe Bryant, let me see if I can make him laugh, just young and dumb bro, so I got it the hard way. He wasn’t laughing, he was serious all the time. But he little bro’d me though, it wasn’t like ‘shoo fly’ it was like ‘lil bro, you shouldn’t do that, think about this.’ And I’m moving at 100 miles an hour and he’d be talking like he was Mr. Miyagi and I’d hear him, and then I’m moving again, and then you’ll get a text from him, and then I’m moving again. It was a blur for real for real, but little things come back and I’ll remember a lot of stuff he was saying.
“It was a good time bro, just to get that your first year. Kind of like being a rookie and getting drafted to a championship team and going on they run after they just won one like Denver, Boston. Those groom you for year four and year five in your career. You gonna know how to move, you gonna know how to approach because you remember dang, Jrue Holiday was doing this. Dang Jaylen Brown was doing this … But I was 18 so the knowledge [Kobe] was kicking was way over my head and I’m looking him in his face like [nodding] and not hearing nothing he’s saying until like years later.”
Partly because of his reputation for being immature, Russell was traded by Los Angeles in 2017 along with big man Timofey Mozgov to the Brooklyn Nets for Brook Lopez and the draft rights to Kyle Kuzma. Afterward, Russell eventually grew and developed his game, and when he returned to the Lakers in February 2023, he was a much more refined player and man.
While the team is reportedly looking to trade him, an argument could be made that if it upgrades by getting a legitimate 3-and-D wing and defensive center, its best move could be to keep Russell, at least for now.
He’s entering the final year of a two-year deal he signed last summer that will pay him $18.7 million this coming season.
