Several players who shared the locker room with Kobe Bryant often regarded him as a great leader. However, being a great teammate and leader didn’t mean that Bryant was soft toward them. Darius Johnson had to learn this the hard way when the superstar asked the management to trade him for dozing off during rookie duties.
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Apart from it being difficult for them to adapt to the league, rookies are often also awarded with various tasks. Usually, these rookie tasks are given by the experienced players on the roster to improve team chemistry.
The then-23-year-old was tasked with waking up extremely early in the morning and dropping off the other players’ bags before making it to the team bus. As revealed in an interview, Johnson ended up dozing off and made it late to the bus on one specific occasion.
“They was trynna have me wake up at 5 in the morning, drop the bags off and then don’t be late on the bus type stuff. And I would’ve woke up one morning and I had to drop the bags off and I must’ve dozed off.”
This ticked off the Black Mamba who yelled at him and asked for the team to get “rid” of him right away.
“I sprint down to the bus, Kobe on the back of the bus like ‘oh, y’all might as well get rid of him right now’.”
Johnson had a very short stint with the Purple & Gold. He participated in merely four games, averaged 1.5 minutes, and got traded ultimately. Clearly, Bryant’s voice did have some weight behind the decision to get rid of the youngster.
For someone who didn’t even need to indulge in such activities during his first year as a professional, Kobe surely didn’t take it easy on the rookies.
Bryant had immunity from rookie duties
Entering the NBA at age 18, Bryant was treated as a superstar by Jerry Buss right from the get-go. While Buss didn’t mind the other rookies from getting hazed by the veterans on the roster, the Lakers’ owner made himself crystal clear that hazing Bryant was out-of-bounds.
Shaquille O’Neal and other members of the California side were explicitly told that the teenager was not to be hazed.
“When Kobe got drafted, Jerry Buss told Shaq and the Lakers ‘he’s off limits, you cannot haze him. There’s no rookie hazing him. F*ck off’… That’s the type of future they seen in him, protecting him all the time,” Gilbert Arenas said.
For Bryant, coming to the league straight out of high school would’ve been a huge transition. Hence, Buss did his best to help the youngster get accustomed to the league. Not to add any kind of extra pressure on the teenager, it seems as though Buss gave Kobe preferential treatment.
