MINNEAPOLIS — As soon as he knew he would become Kobe Bryant’s teammate, D’Angelo Russell gushed about wanting to learn everything from him. Russell wanted to pick Bryant’s brain about his scoring mentality, his basketball expertise and the keys toward reaching both excellence and longevity.
But a quarter into his rookie season, it turned out Russell accidentally imitated one of Bryant’s negative traits. As he went one-on-one with Lakers player development coach Thomas Scott during morning shootaround on Wednesday, Russell announced he would impersonate Bryant only to air-ball his fadeaway jumper accidentally. But in reality, Bryant has shown plenty of those as he has averaged 16.