The whole point of playing sports-related video games is to put yourself in the action. To strap yourself into a car pushing 200 mph, to stare down a Roger Clemens fastball with a comically ill-shapen bat, or to peer over an offensive line hell-bent on making sure you find the open receiver tagged with the ‘Y’ button.

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You get to be who you want to be, be you a superstar or also-ran. Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell, in playing one video game franchise during the 20-year old’s youth, apparently dug running with the also-rans; most notably new Lakers coach and former Laker small forward Luke Walton. From a talk with Kevin Ding at Bleacher Report:

Former NBA swingman, who Stephen Jackson, who matched up with Mr. Walton plenty of times during their playing careers, took a little exception (via Reddit) to the gushing:

Hey, to each his own.

Some people liked playing with the Indianapolis Colts in Tecmo Bowl. I spent sophomore year of high school impressing all the ladies with my brilliant all-around work playing as Ron Harper on NBA Live ’96. If D’Angelo Russell wanted to turn Luke Walton into a lob-making, space creating point forward-ly beast playing alongside Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom during his junior high days, that’s his choice.

(And, after a year spent uneasily watching Kobe fire his way into retirement, this was solid in-the-living-room training.)

Stephen Jackson is correct, though. There is no way in hell Luke Walton picked himself in NBA 2K.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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