Julius Randle’s time with the LA Lakers may not have been full of success. However, the forward can always cherish the fact that he had the opportunity to go up against Kobe Bryant in team practices.
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Even in 2014, after various injuries and age catching up to him, Kobe, who was 35 at the time, was still a force to be reckoned with. And Randle confirmed as much while talking about his 1v1 battles with the five-time champ.
The Wolves forward, who played for the Lakers from 2014 to 2018 after being drafted by them, revealed that he used to watch Bryant practice in awe. Randle would often get called in to practice at early hours of the morning just to play defense. That was how hard Kobe trained, and that rubbed off on Randle, too.
Randle spent his rookie season waking up at 5 in the morning just to go to the practice facility and hone his defense for nearly two hours. Turns out, this defensive practice did have a purpose — to help the relatively young Lakers side learn how to play two-way basketball.
They tested out their defense in 1v1 games, and the entire squad would, naturally, take on Bryant — the wily veteran on the roster. Randle claimed that though he learnt quite a bit in those sessions, he never once defeated Kobe in a 1v1 game despite having the advantage of age and athleticism over him.
“Everyone was joking, like man, Kob is here, we can’t believe it!” recalled Randle on the Pardon My Take podcast. “And he just kicked everybody’s a**. Yes [I played him 1 on 1]. Absolutely not [I never beat him].”
Kobe took pride in his 1v1 prowess. Everyone knows how much he loved running iso plays even during games. During his farewell tour in 2016, Kobe was answering questions from a reporter when she brought up JR Rider, who had an infamous scuffle with Bryant during practice.
Their verbal exchange evolved into a 1v1 in the practice facility, and all eyewitness accounts share the same tale — Kobe absolutely smoked him. So, when the reporter asked him if anyone had ever beaten him in a 1v1, Kobe looked at her with surprise and said, “No one. I’m not trynna be, you know, but that’s what I do.”
Kobe did say that there was probably only one player who could’ve beaten him 1v1 — Michael Jordan. That shows the supreme confidence Kobe had in his abilities.
Randle’s ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment came courtesy of Bryant
Julius Randle adored Kobe, so much so that when the superstar cussed him out in his rookie year, he took it to heart, and vowed to get better at the game. In a story he revealed to Paul George last year, Randle claimed his ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment came in the locker room after he and Bryant got into a little verbal spat.
As the rookie on the team, Randle was talking to Nick Young about some things that Bryant had said at a press conference. Young, ever the trouble maker, rather than simply deny or confirm Kobe’s words, simply yelled to Bryant directly, claiming Randle had issues with what he’d said in his conference.
Of course, Kobe was not going to stand for this. He looked Randle dead in the eye and said, “What? Take your a** out there, and shoot some jumpshots. Fix your broke-a** jumpshot m**********r. See, that’s a little bit of hard work. That’s what it is.”
Talk about tough love. But then, their relationship simply got stronger from then on, forged by their love for the game.
