The Los Angeles Lakers are starved to get back to their championship-winning ways and Austin Reaves is a player who wants to be part of raising the 18th banner.
Parity is a storyline in today’s NBA with dynasties becoming rare, so teams are lucky even to win a single championship. L.A. is looking to get back to that mountaintop with Luka Doncic manning the ship.
Notably, Kobe Bryant was a legend who established a gold standard by winning five championships during his 20-year career. The Lakers’ 2020 title was dedicated to him and shows how much he impacted the entire basketball world before and after his tragic passing.
Before signing with the purple and gold in 2021, Reaves was a massive Bryant fan. When asked about his favorite moment from the Black Mamba, he decided on his final game in which he scored 60 points, via “The Young Man and The Three” podcast:
“I mean, it’s hard to top his last game. I was in my room and it’s late because it’s two hours behind, I think it was my senior year in high school, it was ’16 right? 2016? Yeah, I was a senior in high school and I was watching the game. I was losing my shit, I was up, jumping around, going crazy, it’s probably 11:45-12 at night. So, everybody in the house is asleep and I guess, I woke my mom up and she popped her head in the door and was like, ‘What the f— is going on?’ I was just like, ‘Shut up and get out of my room.’ She looked at the TV and she was like, ‘Oh OK, I get it.’ I think like you said, just his mentality towards the game, every possession mattered, he was a winner at the end of the day. And that is what you want in a basketball player.”
Trying to decide on an all-time favorite Bryant moment or story is an impossible task given his greatness, but his last game was a storybook ending. Seeing how much the Hall of Famer poured into basketball, it was only fitting for him to go out on top like that by dropping 60 points.
Austin Reaves’ grandma got mad at LeBron James for yelling at him
Not many players can say they played with arguably the greatest player of all time, but Austin Reaves is fortunate enough to be in that position. However, with that comes an expectation of perfection and LeBron James expects his teammates to be sharp on the court.
Obviously, mistakes are made and Reaves found himself on occasion getting yelled at by James. But, Reaves’ grandma did not take lightly to the four-time champion yelling at her grandson.
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