Toward the end of Thursday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets, it became abundantly clear that the Los Angeles Lakers were going to lose.
But that is no excuse for what D’Angelo Russell did, according to Jay Williams.
Williams appeared on Friday’s episode of “Get Up” and said that Russell sitting out of the team huddle was unacceptable.
He said that Russell has been a detriment to the Lakers for two out of the three games in this series and he shouldn’t have been sitting away from the team when they needed him most.
Instead, he should have been side-by-side with his teammates and trying to find any way to get the Lakers back in the game.
.@RealJayWilliams reacted to D’Angelo Russell not joining the Los Angeles Lakers huddle 😳
(via LADEig/X) pic.twitter.com/qaDF49Lfa8
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) April 26, 2024
This may have been the end of the season for the Lakers and it may have been the end of Russell playing with the team.
There is now reporting that says Russell will opt-out of his player option this summer and test free agency, seeing if another team will be interested in signing him this offseason.
Of course, this moment from Thursday night’s game will only hurt his chances of getting a good deal from another franchise.
It’s not entirely clear what was bothering Russell during Game 3 but he was ice cold for the evening and wasn’t able to land any of his shots.
He looked out of sorts and, toward the end of the game, completely detached from the rest of the team.
The Lakers have to play at least one more game this season, so it’ll be fascinating to see what Russell’s performance and body language look like in Game 4.
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