Lakers guard Austin Reaves told ESPN Friday that he doesn’t want to go by two nicknames that he feels are no longer appropriate.
The second-year player said he no longer wants people to call him “AR-15,” a term that also denotes a weapon commonly used in mass shootings, or “Hillbilly Kobe.” The first nickname was used to combine Reaves’s initials and jersey No. 15, and the latter used since Reaves is a Lakers shooting guard from Arkansas.
“I don’t condone any gun violence that happens around our country,” Reaves told ESPN’s Dave McMeniman.