Bell relishes chances to impress his idol
Rookie and ‘King’ first tangled in L.A. pickup game
For Warriors rookie Jordan Bell, these holiday meetings with LeBron James are becoming routine.
He and the Cleveland Cavaliers star already faced off on Christmas Day and will meet again on national television in a Martin Luther King Day showdown today in Cleveland.
Actually, Bell’s first confrontation with his idol didn’t come under the bright lights of the NBA stage. It happened at a much smaller venue — during pickup game at UCLA.
It was the highlight of Bell’s summer.
Bell’s admiration for James runs deep. Despite his growing up in Long Beach, an area dominated by Kobe Bryant supporters, James’ skillset appealed
more to a young Bell. The support also stemmed from a sibling rivalry between Bell and his brother, a diehard fan of Bryant.
“Anything he liked, I liked the opposite,” Bell said.
Bell still gets giddy when
talking about James. Ask him about the first time the two met and he will immediately recall the 2016 Nike Skills Academy, when the shoe giant rented a private hangar at Hawthorne Municipal Airport to showcase the top collegiate players in the country. Bell recorded the whole moment on his phone when the campers all congregated around the Cavaliers star.
“I’m the only one who has this,” Bell gloats.
Inquire about the first time he saw James play in person, and a smile appears as he brings up the time he scored tickets behind the Miami bench to see James, then a member of the Heat, play against the Los Angeles Clippers during his junior year at Long Beach Poly High School.
In college, Bell even plastered two of James’ posters on the wall of his Oregon dorm room.
With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why Bell was floored when James acknowledged him just before the runs at UCLA.
“He was like, ‘Hey, aren’t you J Bell?’ ” Bell recalled.
“I was like, ‘You know who I am?’ ”
James then upped the ante when it was time to match up with the summertime Warriors.
“Everybody was doing matchups, but it was our ball and LeBron was like, ‘I’ve got J Bell,’ ” Bell recalled.
The basketball gym, neatly tucked on the second floor inside of UCLA’s Student Activities Center, has been a pillar of basketball history on the West Coast.
Legendary Bruins coach John Wooden held practices there. Magic Johnson made the gym a summer destination in the 1980s, attracting NBA legends such as Shaquille O’Neal, Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan.
Former Bruin DaRico “Rico” Hines leads the current incarnation of the games. Hines, who played for UCLA from 1997-2002, became the de-facto leader of the games in 2015. However, the summer of 2017 came with a twist. Instead of individual players strolling into the center to play, players from Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors and Oklahoma City Thunder arrived as full squads.
Because of the influx of players, Hines set up three courts: “winners,” “losers” and “losers losers.” During the games against James, the Warriors’ contingent played well, losing just “one or two out of like seven games,” Hines said.
James was dominant against Bell, displaying his diverse portfolio of dunks, fadeaways and post moves.
“I was mad at myself, because I play good defense, but like, he’s LeBron,” Bell said.
Still, Bell held his own, stealing the ball from his hero on one possession.
“I just kept noticing that when he dribbled he was kind of high,” Bell said.
“I know he likes to go left, so he came down kinda on like the pro-lane on the left side and he crossed over left and I knew he was coming. So I tapped it, got a steal, and a wide-open dunk.”
After the summer experience, Bell has blossomed in his first season with the Warriors. In 36 games, he’s averaging 5.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and is shooting 64.4 percent.
But the summer game with James will forever leave a lasting impression on Bell.
“It was fun,” Bell said.