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An NBA player is extremely lucky if he gets to play with one all-time great at some point in his career. When one gets to play with two such legends, he is truly blessed.
D’Angelo Russell broke into the NBA during the 2015-16 season as a rookie with the Los Angeles Lakers. That was Kobe Bryant’s last year in the league. When Russell was traded back to L.A. in February, it gave him the opportunity to team up with LeBron James.
The guard went on “The Pat Bev Podcast with Rone” and talked about the personality differences between Bryant and James, at least as far as he has experienced.
Via Lakers Nation:
“I’ll just go from an aura perspective, and Kobe was on his way out, but LeBron is more involved with everybody and everything. On the bus he’s social, on the plane he’s social, he’s just more sociable. When I was with Kobe, I sat next to him on the plane in one of the back seats. I sat next to him every time and just watched and studied him and he never talked. He was really to himself, and at the time he was writing the book and the movie and directing and doing all this stuff so he was locked in, but with Kobe I’ve never seen anything like that. When he walked around, you know how everyone’s talking and someone enters a room and everyone goes quiet. He had that about him wherever he went, it was almost weird for him. But he embraced it and that’s really the only difference. On the floor, he was on his way out so he didn’t really have that youthfulness to him where he was bouncy, he was just getting to it. Bron has a different motivation, he’s still writing his (story). Kobe already decided he was retiring that year. That team also had a lot of guys on one-year deals and there weren’t a lot of young guys so our win now moment wasn’t there. It was a fun little run, but we got Kobe on the way out when he was happy-go-lucky and his spirit was a little different. Everybody always said I was lucky I got Kobe on my way out versus when he was still through the grind because he was nasty and competitive.”
With Russell back, the Lakers are considered by most to be a championship contender, so one should expect James to be a little more locked in this coming season.