Statue depicting Kobe Bryant and daughter Gigi Bryant outside Crypto.com Arena to be unveiled on Friday

Russell appeared on the Run Your Race podcast and the Lakers guard spoke about that year with Kobe, saying he was so young and naive that he wasn’t really hearing what he was trying to teach him, but as time passed it began to resonate with him: “Great time. I mean, once again I was just naive to his whole legacy at that time. I’m 18 bro, so I’m young and dumb. Everything’s funny. Kobe Bryant, let me see if I can make him laugh, just young and dumb bro, so I got it the hard way. He wasn’t laughing, he was serious all the time. But he little bro’d me though, it wasn’t like ‘shoo fly’ it was like ‘lil bro, you shouldn’t do that, think about this.’ And I’m moving at 100 miles an hour and he’d be talking like he was Mr. Miyagi and I’d hear him, and then I’m moving again, and then you’ll get a text from him, and then I’m moving again. It was a blur for real for real, but little things come back and I’ll remember a lot of stuff he was saying. -via Lakers Nation / July 30, 2024