Getty D'Angelo Russell (left) and Jordan Clarkson during younger days with the Lakers.
Much has changed for the Lakers in the last three months, let alone in the last three years since the franchise won the NBA championship in the Orlando Covid-19 bubble. There have been at least three overhauls of the roster in that time, as L.A.’s brain trust has sought to find the right mix around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who are both aging and have struggled to stay healthy in previous seasons.
But go back a step further, and remember that brief period in which the Lakers were focused on rebuilding, just after the retirement of Kobe Bryant but before the arrival of LeBron James. That roster featured multiple young players who have matured into various levels of stardom: Brandon Ingram in New Orleans, Julius Randle in New York, D’Angelo Russell in Brooklyn (then Golden State, Minnesota and now back with the Lakers) and Jordan Clarkson in Utah.
The Lakers also picked up some excellent role players, like Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Josh Hart, Gary Payton Jr. and Alex Caruso.
Based on who was around just before James’ arrival in 2018, it’s conceivable the Lakers could have had a starting five of Lonzo Ball, Caldwell-Pope, Ingram, Randle and either Brook Lopez or Ivica Zubac, with Clarkson, Caruso, Hart, Kuzma and Payton on the bench.
Any regrets about the quick dissolution of that group in the name of getting James and Anthony Davis?
Clarkson says not.
“I think it was best for all of us to just get away and we had to grow up in our different places,” he said. “You see D-Lo coming back, and now he is a grown man doing what he gotta do. It was good for all of us to go off and develop in our own right. You can see the results, I think it was awesome.”
D’Angelo Russell’s Return a Key
The return of Russell to the organization has, indeed, been one of the drivers of the Lakers’ success since the trade deadline. Russell came from Minnesota, along with key role player Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt, in February, arriving in a three-team deal with Utah that saw Russell Westbrook, Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson sent to the Jazz, along with the coveted Lakers’ 2027 first-rounder.
Russell has been brilliant in the playoffs, averaging 15.4 points and 5.7 assists, giving the Lakers a steady third scorer to go with James and Davis—a role they’d hoped Westbrook would fill, but without much success.
Russell has put himself into a position to stick around in L.A. past this season—he is a free agent this summer, and while he won’t match the four-year, $117 million contract he wrapping up, he figures to get something in the range of three years and $75 million, almost certainly from the Lakers, who have made it clear that they intend to keep Russell in the offseason.
Russell Was a Lakers Exile
Of course, that is a remarkable full circle for Russell, who was traded in the 2017 offseason after his second year in the NBA. The previous year, Russell made embarrassing headlines after his infamous Nick Young video leaked—in which Young talked about cheating on his girlfriend of the time, singer Iggy Azalea. He was widely isolated in the organization after that.
“There were a lot of people who were never gonna forgive him for that,” said one Lakers source, “and they wanted him gone that offseason. It was not just that he breached trust and all that, it was that it happened just a few weeks (March 26, 2016) before Kobe Bryant’s final game (April 13), so there was this whole circus around Young and D-Lo when it should have been all about Kobe. And it hurt Kobe because he was just shaking his head like, ‘These little jacka**es can’t stay out of the way for two weeks?’
“They did not trade him immediately because he had been the No. 2 pick and they knew they’d be selling low. But they dumped him the next year pretty much to create cap space. It would be fair to say that no one in the org at that time ever thought we’d see D’Angelo in a Lakers uniform again.”
And yet, here we are. There were a lot of talented young Lakers in that bunch, and many have flourished elsewhere. Of all the stars that could have reunited with the Lakers—Ingram, Randle, Clarkson—Russell was always the longest shot because of the hurt feelings left in his wake. But he’s got at least one guy pulling for him.
“To me, it is cool to see it,” Clarkson said. “Someone you came up with and has come so far.”