All is not well in Los Angeles with the Lakers and their prized draft pick last June, D’Angelo Russell.
The team and Russell’s teammates for that matter, are not the least bit pleased about the 20-year-old taping a conversation between himself and teammate Nick Young that has gone viral.
In that video, Young talks about hooking up with a 19-year-old and not getting together with Amber Rose because “she knows my girl.”
His “girl” is Iggy Azaela who he is engaged to Young and is apparently cool with the video.
As you can imagine, the video has created shall we say, some trust issues among Rusell and the Lakers.
This is just the latest chapter in what has been a narrative full of disappointment, frustration and overall disarray between the No. 2 pick in last June’s NBA draft and the Lakers franchise.
It has been the kind of dysfunctional relationship that some team will surely try and capitalize on and try to trade for Russell.
Boston Celtics
Could the Celtics be that team?
At least one league executive thinks so.
“All those picks and young players Boston has, they could probably put a package together that would at least pique the Lakers’ interest,” a league executive told CSNNE.com via text. “But do the Lakers want to move him over something like this? I don’t think so. But hey, stranger things have happened.”
The run-ins with head coach Byron Scott and Russell have been well-documented, resulting in him going from playing a major role to not playing to back to playing again.
If the Celtics got to a point where they wanted to make a move on Russell, it would surely have to cost them Marcus Smart.
Smart has distinguished himself as a tremendous defender, but has struggled of late shooting the ball.
Meanwhile, Russell has similar size and is a better scorer but doesn’t provide defensive play anywhere close to what Smart brings to the floor.
Boston would likely have to throw in a pick or potentially swap picks of some kind in order to sweeten the deal.
Again, it remains to be seen if the Celtics will make any effort towards acquiring Russell.
But when it comes to getting deals done, taking advantage of another team’s problems are exactly the kind of deals Danny Ainge has engineered in the past.