Getty D'Angelo Russell (left) had a much different experience with the Lakers last year than Patrick Beverley (right)
It’s not difficult to track the contours of last season for the Lakers. On the night of the NBA’s trade deadline, February 9, the Lakers lost their third straight game to Milwaukee, dropping L.A. to 25-31, 13th in the Western Conference. But on that day, they pulled off two major trades that sent out five players and brought in four more, completing a roster overhaul that made L.A. younger, more athletic and more talented overall.
One of the players who came aboard, from Minnesota, was D’Angelo Russell, who had been a Laker for two seasons when he was drafted with the No. 2 pick in 2015 out of Ohio State. Russell was outstanding during the Lakers’ stretch run, averaging 17.4 points in his final 17 games, on 48.4% shooting and 41.4% 3-point shooting.
One of the players who was sent out that day, to Orlando, was veteran guard Patrick Beverley. When the pair got together to talk on the Pat Bev podcast this week, the difference in the Lakers’ pre-trade-deadline and post-trade-deadline were obvious.
As Beverley said of his short time with the team, “Not fun. Not fun at all. That’s what it was.”
Pat Beverley Struggled With the Lakers
Indeed, Beverley, who was waived by the Magic and picked up by the Bulls before signing on with the Sixers this summer, had his struggles with L.A. last year. He started 45 games and averaged 6.4 points, making 34.8% of his 3-pointers. The Lakers were 21-24 in games that he played, a rare circumstance for Beverley, whose teams are 361-232 when he plays in his career.
Beverley’s teams had only lost more than they won when he was on the floor once, in 2015-16, when the Rockets were 35-36 win him in the lineup (they were 33-30 when he was a starter).
But bringing in new players, especially Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley in a deal with Minnesota and Utah, not only changed the Lakers on the floor, it changed the chemistry off the floor.
That is what Russell noted when Beverley responded, though Beverley offered no details.
“I don’t know what it was before we got here …” Russell said.
“Not fun. Not fun at all. That’s what it was,” Beverley said.
“Y’all was getting your a** kicked,” Russell said.
“Yeah. On and off the court. Factual,” Beverley said.
Lakers’ Mood Changed With New Guys’ Addition
But Russell described a change—a lightening up—that happened when he and the others arrived. The Lakers went 19-8 down the stretch, earned a playoff spot after a play-in tournament win and pulled back-to-back postseason upsets, beating No. 2 seed Memphis and defending-champ Golden State in the first two rounds before they were swept by Denver in the conference finals.
“The buzz around the team was like, people were talking about the Lakers again,” Russell said. “Everybody was laughing at the Lakers at the time because we were losing. So for me, it was like, ‘Let’s bring this new energy.’ And we came with some guys that I already knew that were happy-go-lucky guys. Teams need those energy guys, not energy like on the court but energy like in the locker room, make guys laugh. You need that offset. With the Vandos and the Beas-es, we came with the energy like, we just wanted to make everybody smile again. Let’s make this fun again.”