LeBron James and Kobe Bryant were often portrayed as rivals. Ironically, they never squared off in the NBA Finals and weren’t even from the same generation, so that never made much sense.
Still, for whatever reason, it seemed like you couldn’t be a fan of one without hating the other. Fortunately, that no longer seems to be the case among most fans.
With that in mind, Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell shed some light on the differences between playing with one or the other, as he had the opportunity to meet one when he first entered the league and then the other when he came back to Los Angeles.
D’Angelo Russell Talks About Kobe Bryant And LeBron James
“I’ll just go from an aura perspective, and Kobe was on his way out, but LeBron is more involved with everybody and everything,” Russell said on The Pat Bev Podcast.
“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,” Russell added.”
“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,“ continued Russell.
“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 bouncey, he was just getting to it,” added Russell. “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,” the former No. 2 pick concluded.
see also
Dwight Howard gets real on the LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant debate
At the end of the day, both took different approaches to achieve the same, and it definitely paid off throughout the course of their careers. Russell is definitely one lucky player.
