D’Angelo Russell’s Kobe Bryant impersonation ends with an airball
Now that he and teammate Julius Randle have been bumped from the Los Angeles Lakers starting lineup and limited to maybe half a game’s worth of minutes with little explanation, in continuation of a maddening season-long trend that seems to defy reason, rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell needs to make the most of his pregame work. So there he was, going one-on-one with Lakers player development coach Thomas Scott during the Lakers’ morning shootaround prior to Wednesday’s road game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when Russell decided to pay tribute to Laker legend Kobe Bryant, who recently announced his plans to retire at the end of this season, just as soon as he gets a few (thousand) more shots off.
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We’re guessing Russell didn’t know quite how accurate an homage to the Mamba he was about to author, and we’re guessing Kobe appreciates this one a bit less than the snow portrait, the framed jerseys and the display-cased sneakers. As captured by Mark Medina of the Los Angeles News Group:
Move over, Brandon Armstrong. There’s a new top dog in the NBA impersonations game. (If saying Tracy McGrady might’ve been the GOAT earned Russell a snide tweet, I shudder to think about the response Kobe’s got planned for this.)
Head coach Byron Scott told reporters Wednesday that he intended to stay the course with the role shift for Russell and Randle, saying that the Lakers — who have lost three straight and 10 of 11, and enter Wednesday’s action at 3-18, the worst record in the Western Conference — “have to find lineups that’s going to work as well together,” according to Medina. In a going-nowhere season that marks the end of one Lakers era and, with any luck, will lay the groundwork for the start of another, you’d expect that giving youngsters like Russell and Randle every opportunity to be part of those higher-functioning lineups would be a top priority … but, evidently, that’s not the case, at least not right now.
“Hopefully I can look back at this and laugh,” Russell said, “shaking his head while offering up shrugs and even a few chuckles,” after coming off the bench in Monday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors, according to Baxter Holmes of ESPN.com.
If nothing else, this video ought to help.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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