THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – D'Angelo Russell hasn't pursued the stature of the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft on Thursday night, as much as he's pursued its possessor: the Los Angeles Lakers. The stage, the burden, the long, long point guard shadow of the incomparable Magic Johnson, Russell has relentlessly chased it all. D'Angelo Russell has made his case.

He was talking inside in a suburban Southern California restaurant recently, awaiting his trip to New York for Thursday night's draft, and slowly, surely Russell has made the Lakers think longer and harder about his candidacy. Once, everyone was so confident Duke center Jahlil Okafor was the Lakers' easy choice, with Kentucky's Karl Towns fastened to Minnesota's No. 1 overall pick.

Only now, on the cusp of the draft, Russell keeps coming. He is a spectacular 6-foot-5 freshman out of Ohio State with a gift to accurately deliver passes at the most improbable of angles, to the most darting of targets. He comes with a developing jumper and a Showtime point guard presence that washes over him. As much as anything, Russell is a fascinating blend of confidence and cockiness harnessed within an understanding of how you heed the expertise and cull the lessons of those before you.

Russell makes his case to be the cornerstone for a Lakers revival, wanting desperately the chance to earn Kobe Bryant's trust, earn a mentoring for the duration of Bryant's stay in the uniform.

View photos D'Angelo Russell (right) left Ohio State for the NBA draft after one season. (AP) More

"If I were to go to the Lakers, I wouldn't want anybody to hand me anything," Russell told Yahoo Sports. "I wouldn't expect Kobe to take me under his wing. I think he will want to see a resemblance of that hunger and fire that he came into the league with as a young kid. No one needs to be nicest guy in the world, or needs to pretend to be that. He will see through that, pick all that apart.

"I've got to be me."

Russell has been coached hard, broken down and reconstructed into the world's best NBA guard prospect. At 19 years old, Russell never had the basketball privilege that comes with the sport targeting you as the next big thing – and that makes him so much surer of his preparedness to take the mantle of the NBA's glamour franchise. He had been raised in Louisville, a rising young talent playing in the shadow of Rajon Rondo, under Rondo's old high school coach, Doug Bibby, who had moved to Central High School where Russell had enrolled.

Rondo heard the comparisons, stopped into the old high school gym to watch Russell, and somehow it seemed like the freshman never played his best. "He didn't take me under his wing," Russell told Yahoo Sports. "I would've thought the same way as him, though, if everyone was saying, "Oh, [D'Angelo's] the next you.' And then you watch him play, and you think, "Oh man, I was better than him in high school.' "

Russell's father, Antonio, wanted D'Angelo groomed in a more intensive setting and decided to send him off to a basketball prep school. "Everybody wanted me to go to Oak Hill and then Kentucky, follow Rondo's footsteps," Russell told Yahoo Sports. Before his sophomore year, Russell found his way to Montverde Academy in Florida, where the coach, Kevin Boyle, had built a national reputation as a tough Jersey guy with a gift for developing great point guards and greater teams.

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