Recently, Russell talked about Kobe during his trip to China.

He said: "I saw Kobe's confidence and also witnessed his struggles during that time - he was not in a good shooting form and he did play hard. I remember that I was an 18-year-old rookie at that time, and I walked up to him and said, 'Keep shooting, keep shooting, you'll be fine. We'll put that clip out later because it was an interview clip, and the reporter asked him, 'How does it make you feel when there was a young player who encouraged you to keep shooting?' He said, ‘Come on, man, you’ll be fine.’ “

”He looked at me and said, ‘Do you think I’m worried about these shots? The balls I missed and the shots I’ve made were so many that I couldn’t imagine. So, I don’t care whether I’m 3 of 20 or 5 of 15 shots, it doesn’t matter.’ He doesn’t care about these numbers at all, and his confidence is always at that level. To be honest, I learned a lot from him.”