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Every player has that moment as a rookie in which they remember being humbled in some way or when it finally hits them that they are an NBA player. Players have had some funny recollections of this moment and others have had some miserable ones over the years.
For D’Angelo Russell, his likely fell on the latter half of that spectrum.
Russell entered the league in 2015 and spent two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers before he was traded to the Brooklyn Nets. His rookie season was Kobe Bryant’s final year in the NBA as he had an opportunity to learn from one of the greatest players ever.
Bryant was known to be, similarly to Michael Jordan, very blunt and direct with his teammates. Russell experienced this firsthand, as he recalled on “The Old Man & the Three” podcast with J.J. Redick, one game when the Lakers were playing Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers.
We were in Portland, we are playing Dame. At the start of the game, I’m guarding him. They are like, ‘You are going to guard Dame. Do you accept the challenge?’ I’m like, ‘Cool. Let’s do it.’ We are out there and I’m in awe. This is Damian Lillard, ‘Wow!’ I’m still in awe for maybe the whole first quarter. This dude pulls up, deep ball, three. Come down, foul on me, and-one. Look up, deep ball three. Another one, another one. It felt like I was on this island by myself, no one was there to help me out.
They called a timeout. Kobe looks at me, ‘What do you want? The [expletive] to have 50?!’ Kobe goes out and guards him. First of all, that was my ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment just Dame having [expletive], I don’t know what he had. Then seeing Kobe guard him and just beat him up basically. [The referees] weren’t letting him foul out of that game and he just beat him up. He shut it down. I watched the refs let Kobe just beat the [expletive] out of him and I was just like, ‘Man! That’s his reputation and [I realized] the refs really control the game.’
Bryant and Lillard certainly humbled quite a few players over the years and Russell ended up becoming one of them, though for very different reasons. Russell said on the podcast that he loves telling that story so he definitely recognized it was a significant moment in his career.
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