Since Austin Reaves arrived to the Los Angeles Lakers as a rookie in 2022, he quickly emerged as one of the biggest undrafter steals in recent memory. Reaves has improve in each of his five seasons and built a strong chemistry with LeBron James both on and off the court.
Funny enough, the Arkansas native grew up a Kobe Bryant fan and learned to have a distaste for James, especially when he joined the Miami Heat. Reaves shared the origin story of his Bryant fandom along with how he broke the ice with the four-time champion of an old social media post resurfacing when they were teammates.
“I just honestly was a Kobe guy, so… No, [the meme] was hilarious,” Reaves said in an interview with Pardon My Take. “When I need some sleep, I put my phone on LeBron mode, no rings. And it was a picture of Kobe like this. But no, I mean, I was a die-hard Kobe guy. So by default, I didn’t like Bron and it’s funny when that had came out we were in New Orleans. And after the game, we’d get in the locker room, Coach comes in, talks whatever and then I pull my phone up and it’s just text after text after text. And I pull up my Instagram and the first thing I see is ESPN posted it like a tweet of mine from when I was 12 and I was like, ‘Shit, what do I do?’ So, I just went over to him and I was like, ‘Yo, I’m not gonna lie to you, I used to be a hater.’ And I turned my phone around, he just started laughing.”
This is the world James lives in, where he has played so long that his now former teammate grew up a hater of him and Reaves found that to be hard to put into perspective.
“It’s crazy, it’s definitely crazy. The crazy thing was is everything that the outside world thinks of him as a person, you can’t really think he’s a bad player that’s impossible. He’s so good. I was completely wrong on, he’d been f—ing phenomenal from Day 1. I was on a two-way [contract] and he treated me the same as he does today.”
Obviously, the two parties were able to joke about it in the moment and went on to form a great tandem together. Once Reaves continued to develop as an on-ball creator, he put together numerous highlights with James that will live in history, a testament to both players.
Austin Reaves reveals JJ Redick’s unusual fear
Golfing is a sport Austin Reaves enjoys a lot and his infectious love would eventually spread to the rest of the team. One of those who would get out on the green was head coach JJ Redick and Reaves shared an unusual fear that Redick has when he is out on the course.
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