HOURS AFTER A midseason trade sent him to Los Angeles, D’Angelo Russell picked up the phone. It was Feb. 9, 2023, and on the other end was Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka, calling to welcome the 28-year-old guard back to the franchise that drafted him second overall in 2015.
Russell heard Pelinka say how vital his contributions would be in L.A.’s late-season push after the Lakers acquired the former All-Star in a deadline deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves. How he’d be relied upon to play point alongside his childhood hero, LeBron James, whom the Lakers were able to sign in 2018 thanks in part to the cap-clearing trade that ended Russell’s first stint with the team.
But Russell, who was going from the eighth-place Wolves to the 13th-place Lakers, didn’t share the same optimism as his
L.A. jumped to seventh in the Western Conference over the final two months of 2022-23. The run catapulted the Lakers to the conference finals and Russell came up huge in consequential moments.
There was his 31-point performance on 12-for-17 shooting in Game 6 of the first round to close out the Memphis Grizzlies. “I remember Dillon Brooks going from trying to harass Bron, to actually trying to guard me,” Russell said. He followed it up with 21 points in Game 3 of the second round to go up 2-1 on the Golden State Warriors and 19 in Game 6 to close them out.
But Russell, who had started every game he played for L.A. after his trade, had his playing time slashed as he shot just 8-for-27 through the first three games of the conference finals. Then, Russell was demoted to a bench role for Game 4 as the eventual champion Denver Nuggets finished the sweep.
Suddenly, the normally verbose playmaker didn’t feel like he had much of a say. Lakers coach Darvin Ham limited Russell’s role while leaning more heavily on veteran guard Dennis Schroder for the series
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