"We were trash" - D'Angelo Russell clarifies the boos from Lakers fans during Kobe Bryant's final game
LA Lakers star D'Angelo Russell shared his experience of playing alongside Kobe Bryant in his farewell season. In Bryant's final years with the team up until 2016, the Lakers were one of the worst teams in the league.
The year before Kobe retired, the Lakers finished 14th in the Western Conference and had the fourth-worst record (21-61) in the league. In the 2015-16 season, they were last in the league, with only 17 wins.
In the midst of all this, the Lakers weren't getting TV coverage like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. However, when Kobe announced his retirement, Lakers games were back on ESPN for his farewell tour. Regarding this, Russell recalled:
"We were trash and then it was like farewell tour and then it was like TV games. Nobody was trying to see us. There were no TV games. We were bo*ty but once it became Kobe’s, yea, you all saw all bo*ty-as* games."
Russell further mentioned that fans wanted Bryant to score so much that they booed every other player who had the ball on offense:
"Bro, when you got the ball, they [fans] are booing you. You know what that means. ‘Get that ball to that man!' He was just trying to score. ... It was really us running around trying to get him the ball."
Kobe Bryant played his last game against the Utah Jazz on Apr. 13, 2016, and did what he had made a career out of. He sank and hit clutch shots one after another, which resulted in him scoring 60 points in the game.
Kobe leads the franchise in almost all the major categories, counting total points (8,378), steals (1,944) and total games played (1,346).
D'Angelo Russell says he was anti-Kobe until he met him as a Lakers rookie
D'Angelo Russell is one of the few NBA players who has shared the court with two of the greatest players of all time. As a rookie, he played with the Black Mamba and now he is teammates with LeBron James.
In a conversation with Casey Reiger on "Spa Day," Russell opened up about his childhood idols and how his perception of Bryant changed after he met the Lakers legend:
"I got to play with Kobe. It was really cool. My brother was a big Kobe fan, and I was a LeBron fan. I was always kinda like "anti-Kobe," but respectfully. So once I got around him, all that kinda went out the window. I was just a fan of him right away. I wanted to be next to him, I wanted to sit next to him and ask him all the crazy questions as an 18-year-old." (Time stamp: 3:43)
Unfortunately, Russell shared just one season with Bryant, who retired the same year the point guard was selected by the Purple and Gold. He has now shared court with LeBron James for two seasons.