UNIVERSITY OF LOS ANGELES, LOS ANGELES, CA — Draymond Green appeared at UCLA for some scrimmages against other NBA players such as LeBron James (not pictured), Paul George, Wesley Matthews and Aaron Gordon.
His Golden State Warriors teammates Jordan Bell, Nick Young and Damian Jones also appeared.
NBC Sports Bay Area writer Monte Poole recently caught up with Bell, and Bell recalled his UCLA scrimmage, guarding James.
“I was guarding him the whole time,â Bell recalled of a session last month. âItâs different than what you see on TV. Itâs waaaay different.
Itâs crazy how big he is, how quick he is for his size and how smart he is,â Bell recalled. âHe was standing straight up, and Iâm thinking he canât go by me if heâs standing straight up. Iâm in a good defensive stance. Heâs not crouching.
âBut there he goes. Iâm not going to say he got by me, but I didnât realize he was so quick. For him to be standing straight up, thereâs no way he should be able to move that fast. Iâd understand that quickness if he got lower, but Iâve never seen anybody so quick while standing straight up.
The University of Oregon product believes he avoided embarrassment, though he clearly was the student to Jamesâ teacher.
âI thought I did a pretty good job on him, but he obviously hit some shots,â Bell said. âBut he would get on the block, and Iâm containing him, not letting him back me down, and he would fade away from the block to the 3-point line — and make it. And I just played the best defense of my life. It didnât matter.â
Bell did have at least one ally, Warriors teammate Draymond Green, who is acutely familiar with the futility that can come with battling with LeBron.
âDraymond was on my team,â Bell said, âand he was just like, âLook, you canât do nothing about that. Just worry about the next play.â But he also said if LeBron is taking those types of shots, thatâs what we want because weâre going to make more 3s than he makes 2s.â
NBA photographer Cassy Athena was there on occasion and took all of these photographs. Please visit her website at cassyathena.com. Please contact Ms. Athena if you would like to see more photos from UCLA than the ones featured here!
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