One of the main reasons the Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs was the play of Julius Randle. The forward averaged 22.6 points in the series while knocking down 39.3% from deep as he regularly made the Lakers defense pay for focusing so much attention on Anthony Edwards.
It was also a nice bit of revenge for Randle in his first season with the Timberwolves as he was able to take out his former team. Randle, of course, was originally drafted by the Lakers in 2014 and spent his first four NBA seasons with the franchise. The first two of those were the final two NBA seasons of the legendary Kobe Bryant and Randle was able to learn a lot from him in that period.
Randle recently spoke on this following the Timberwolves’ latest playoff win over the Golden State Warriors when discussing the adversity he has faced. The forward would credit being mentored by Kobe while with the Lakers in really teaching him how to deal with adversity in his basketball career, via NBA on X:
“I’ve battled through a lot in my career to be honest. I mean, my first game in my career I broke my leg, so I’ve been through a lot. I had a great mentor in Kobe that didn’t necessarily let me pout or get down on myself. His thing was always ‘Alright, what’s next? How can you get better? How can you improve?’ So I always just kind of took that mentality with me. Growing up, my mom raised me to be a hard worker and not feel sorry for myself so I just think it’s in my DNA and it’s part of who I am. I look forward to challenges, adversity, all that different type of stuff. It’s room for growth.”
It is very much forgotten about now, but Randle did suffer that broken leg in his first NBA game and lost his entire rookie season because of it. But having Bryant there to help guide him through that recovery stuck with him and he surely maintained that same mindset while dealing with injuries this year in Minnesota.
Now, Randle is in the midst of his best postseason run of his career and the lessons that Kobe gave to him in his early career are serving him well now. It’s just a shame that this run had to come at the expense of the Lakers, but Randle is undoubtedly deserving of the praise he is receiving now.
WNBA star Paige Bueckers also credits Lakers legend Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant was a major supporter of women’s basketball and one of the game’s brightest young stars is Paige Bueckers who was the top overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Bueckers’ ended her college career at UConn with a National Championships, but her early career was marred with injury, particularly a torn ACL.
And like many others, Bueckers drew inspiration from the Lakers legend and the way he attacked his Achilles injury. Bueckers mentioned reading Kobe’s book ‘Mamba Mentality’ and how he looked at these injuries as a new challenge and adopted that same mindset in her recovery.
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