LOS ANGELES — Have we mentioned the unpredictability of the Lakers lately?
Unpredictability, to be clear, in terms of never knowing exactly what you’re going to get out of this group. Two nights after laying a giant purple egg here against Sacramento, letting what was once a 19-point lead get away, the Lakers faced the Milwaukee Bucks without LeBron James (out after having aggravated his sore ankle) and came away with their most inspiring victory of the year.
And the main architect of that 123-122 triumph was a guy who most people figured would be gone at the trading deadline.
D’Angelo Russell had the knockout blow, a teardrop of a jumper with 5.9 seconds left to retake the lead, after which newcomer Spencer Dinwiddie secured the win by blocking Damian Lillard’s jumper as time ran out.
Even before that, Russell’s 44-point night included a 9-for-12 performance from behind the 3-point line, each succeeding trey bringing a greater crescendo of noise from the home crowd.
Along the way, Russell was the fifth player in team history to have eight or more 3-pointers in three different games, joining a group that includes Magic Johnson, Nick Van Exel, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and LeBron James. He has 171 this season, moving into No. 6 on the franchise’s all-time list for single-season 3-pointers, and his total of 482 as a Laker puts him ninth on the team’s career list. (Presumably, Kobe Bryant’s 1,827 is out of reach.)
But the details and the numbers, in this case, are less important than the glimmer of hope a night like this provides, even if so many of those other hopeful moments have been fool’s gold for a team that is 35-30 and, by Friday night, was a half-game ahead of 10th-place Golden State at the bottom of the play-in zone.
If there somehow really is a deep playoff run in them, Russell probably will have a key role.
When Russell was first traded by the Lakers to Brooklyn in June of 2017, two years after they’d drafted him with the second overall pick, he was damaged goods, with Johnson – then the club’s director of basketball operations – acknowledging he’d traded Russell in part because of an off-court incident in which he secretly recorded teammate Nick Young admitting he had cheated on his fiancee.
“Obviously you know what I’ve been through, public humiliation,” Russell said Friday night. “That motivated me into the killer that y’all see today.
“I never lacked confidence. I never feared confrontation. I wanted all the smoke. I wanted to talk about it, just as high-IQ players get in the room and talk about it. I just feel confident what I bring to the basketball game. It’s film, it’s watching and helping young players.”
Current Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka brought Russell back last year at the deadline, and he played a substantial role in the team’s surge down the stretch even with the acknowledgement he would never make anyone’s all-defensive team, something the Denver Nuggets publicly exploited during the Western Conference finals.
Yet as this season’s trade deadline approached, most of the league’s pundits had zeroed in on Russell as the guy most likely to go, his defense still an issue and his role reduced from starter to sub for a while with injury scrambling his role as well.
“He and I had a conversation – I won’t go into detail, but he and I had conversations about that very thing,” Coach Darvin Ham said late Friday night. “It’s just a reality of our business that his name is being thrown around, because he has value. He’s worth something. Other teams see that. He’s an All-Star player. And so you’re going to have all type of things being thrown around, from secret sources or whatever the case may be.
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“We extended him (in July, a two-year, $36 million deal to return to the Lakers) for a reason. We wanted him to be a part of what we’re doing here, the core group that we brought back. And, you know, until that day comes and goes and you see that everyone is really being honest and true with you, you’re going to have that stuff in the air and you just try to manage it the best you can, remain professional. And he did just that.”
Yes, he has value. His big night Friday night – which included four 3-pointers in a row during a first-half surge that put the Lakers in front, where they stayed for most of the game – was an example. On nights when LeBron James is unavailable, others have to step up, and Russell has shown he’s not afraid to take that responsibility.
“I just like the way he plays the game,” teammate Austin Reaves said. “He said on his podcast the other day, ‘I can’t jump. I have two left feet.’ But he’s still able to do impressive things. … Just the way that he plays the game, he’s one of the smoothest players I’ve ever seen and been around. And it’s a testament to what he does when nobody’s watching. You know, he’s always in the gym like I’ve spoke about, perfecting his craft.
“… Even when the trade rumors are going around or whatever, he was showing up with a smile on his face because he was gonna play basketball. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
jalexander@scng.com