LOS ANGELES – Months had passed for Julius Randle, his fractured leg had mended and, still, he sat as a solitary, seething customer in a Southern California restaurant. The trainers had let him back into the gym in March to start his long, lonely return to the Los Angeles Lakers' lineup, and Randle desperately resisted the slow, steady churn of the regimen. He wanted to go longer, harder. He wanted to stay in the gym.

View photos Julius Randle could be one of the cornerstone pieces of the Lakers' future. (Getty Images) More

"I'm frustrated," Randle texted. "I just want to play basketball."

"Patience," Kobe Bryant responded to him.

"I'm 19 years old," Randle wondered. "How do I have patience?"

"It's the only choice," Bryant told him.

"You'll see."

Now, Randle is sitting in a corner booth of Don Chuy's in Playa Vista on a sunny September afternoon and laughs, "I do see it now."

Randle is forever grateful about the way his boyhood idol climbed down from the posters on his bedroom and into his basketball life.

"The biggest person to help get me through this was Kobe – by far," Randle says.

Suddenly, everything had come to a crashing stop for Julius Randle, a McDonald's All-America who had fast-tracked through a teenager's trifecta fantasy: Kentucky, the draft lottery and the Lakers. He loves L.A., the sun, the surf, the glamour franchise that every young star believes can make them a transcendent star. And then on opening night, Randle heard the crack of his bone and crumpled to the court.

After losing his entire rookie season to that fractured tibia in his right leg – as well as getting a screw reinserted into his right foot to stabilize an old high school injury – Randle returns with a transformed body and ethic: He's never eaten so well, never developed his frame so fiercely, never felt stronger and surer starting a basketball season. He's a hulking 6-foot-9 forward with such possibility, a cornerstone of this Lakers future, the prospect that general manager Mitch Kupchak refused to include in those brief trade talks for Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins.

Kobe Bryant's education of Julius Randle started on the floor in training camp, and stayed a constant presence once Randle was carried out of the season on a stretcher. It started in one-on-one games and long talks and Randle feeling humbled when he'd get to the arena for a preseason game and Bryant, soaked in sweat, was finishing a hard workout. "He's a five-time champion and an MVP, and I'm thinking to myself, 'What's my excuse?' "

Bryant lost his season to a rotator cuff tear in February, but balanced his own angst with months of pushing and prodding of his teenage teammate. Bryant always chooses his pupils carefully, rewarding those who demonstrate a serious-mindedness to the craft. More than that, Bryant understands Randle is one of the burgeoning talents who could give him reason to postpone retirement.

View photos Randle was lost for last season after breaking his right leg in the first game. (AP) More

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