D’Angelo Russell trade rumors: Lakers rookie has not been made available
By Jack Crosby
Despite rumors of the such, D’Angelo Russell has not been put on the trading block by the Lakers.
On Thursday there was a pretty juicy report in the NBA world that the Los Angeles Lakers have made rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell available on the trade block. Of course, being the most recent second overall pick in the NBA Draft, this was something that was more than newsworthy with NBA trades starting to gain some steam here.
Well, it looks like the Lakers making Russell available might not be true at all.
According to SI’s Jake Fischer, while the reports were out there on Thursday that the Lakers are shopping him, that’s actually not the case at all.
Now, of course, given the way that Russell has been used by the team here in his rookie season, teams are calling up the Lakers to see if he is indeed available. But, why wouldn’t they?
Russell has had quite the confusing rookie year and that pretty much all centers around the way that Byron Scott uses his stud point guard out of Ohio State. Russell has shown flashes of brilliance at times, yet Scott doesn’t really get him on the floor for the minutes that he really deserves. People have criticized this all season long, but Scott is not budging on his tactic of benching him routinely.
In his rookie season, Russell is averaging 12.2 points per game with 3.3 assists.