Photo Credit: Gary Dineen/Getty Images

D’Angelo Russell Shares Story Of Kobe Bryant Welcoming Him While Guarding Damian Lillard: “You Want This Motherf**ker To Have 50?”

D’Angelo Russell has had the privilege of playing with some of the greatest players in NBA history in his short NBA career. 

Among these great players is the late, great Kobe Bryant, who also was involved in D’Angelo Russell’s ‘welcome to the league moment’. During an appearance on the JJ Redick podcast, Russell revealed that when they played the Portland Trail Blazers in his rookie year, with him in charge of guarding Damian Lillard, things didn’t go as planned.

Lillard went off, and Russell wasn’t able to stop him. A visibly frustrated Kobe Bryant came over, took the challenge of guarding Lillard upon himself, and ended up beating up and shutting down Lillard.

“We were in Portland, we are playing Dame. At the start of the game, I’m guarding him. They are like, ‘You are going to guard Dame. Do you accept the challenge?’ I’m like, ‘Cool. Let’s do it.’ We are out there and I’m in awe. This is Damian Lillard, ‘Wow!’ I’m still in awe for maybe the whole first quarter. This dude pulls up, deep ball, three. Come down, foul on me, and-one. Look up, deep ball three. Another one, another one. It felt like I was on this island by myself, no one was there to help.

They called a timeout. Kobe looks at me, ‘What do you want? The mother**ker to have 50?!’ Kobe goes out and guards him. First of all, that was my ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment just Dame having, I don’t know what he had. Then seeing Kobe guard him and just beat him up basically. They weren’t letting him foul out of that game and he just beat him up. He shut it down. I watched the refs let Kobe just beat the sh*t out of him and I was just like, ‘Man! That’s his reputation and the refs really control the game.’”