The NBA world was quite stunned to see LeBron James show an impressive amount of faith in his young teammate. As some fans might be aware, a player on the Lakers’ roster called Max Christie has already been compared to Kobe Bryant several times in his short NBA career.
With the NBA season only a few days away from starting, teams are slowly ramping up their intensity in order to prepare for the 82-game season and potentially a long postseason. During their most recent preseason game, LeBron did something that many fans might claim to be out of character. With that being said, let us take a closer look and find out more.
LeBron James shows trust toward “Kobe Bryant incarnate” Max Christie
To those who might not understand the connection, Christie earned a lot of comparisons to the Black Mamba due to his physical similarities and mannerisms during interviews. Moreover, he has also openly shown respect and admiration towards Kobe.
Christie played in only 41 games last season and is essentially a rookie. However, that did not stop LeBron James from displaying trust and belief in his young teammate’s abilities. A picture of LeBron down in the post while Christie pulled up to shoot a three-pointer soon went viral on social media.
LeBron already this confident in Christie’s 3pt 🔥🔥
(SS Via @Tim_NBA) pic.twitter.com/DZvCqmUYMj
— Coach James 🇭🇹 (@JamesEdrick3) October 14, 2023
As we can tell, King James was not even looking at the hoop during this play. Additionally, he made no attempt to raise his hands and ask for the ball despite clearly being in scoring range. This speaks to the confidence he had in the ability of Max Christie to knock down a shot.
Since the Lakers ended up losing that game to the Golden State Warriors, we really can’t make this out into meaning too much. After all, this was just a preseason game with neither side having anything to lose.
Nonetheless, we are glad to see that LeBron is still playing selflessly despite being one of the most accomplished players in the history of the NBA. Fans are eager to see what Max Christie will be able to do for this team next season as they look to contend for an NBA championship.