Perhaps no one in the NBA has heard his name in more trade rumors in recent weeks than Los Angeles Lakers point guard D’Angelo Russell.
To his credit though, it has not affected his play. In fact, Russell has been playing some of the best basketball of his career in recent weeks and that continued in Saturday night’s double overtime win over the Golden State Warriors.
Russell got off to a slow shooting start but eventually came up big for the Lakers with 19 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to finish the night with 28 points, three rebounds, five assists, one block and two steals in 49 minutes of action.
In the second overtime, Russell had back-to-back costly turnovers for the Lakers. He immediately made up for them with a transition 3 that he buried though, and he discussed what was going through his mind at that time, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“To be honest, I knew I had just turned the ball over. So for me, it was just trying to be sure on whatever I was gonna do next time I got the ball, Not lose confidence because once again, that doesn’t help the team. But just trying to be decisive. Obviously the turnovers were huge too and for me, after the last few games I haven’t had any air to shoot 3s. For them to come out and scout that to try to take that out the game, that was a good look for me. Still feel that.”
Playing 49 minutes in a game where you have to chase around Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson definitely is not easy, but Russell credited his offseason training for getting him in shape to be able to make big shots late in games for the Lakers:
“It’s mind over matter. I trained for this in the summertime. Every year I try to go into the summer looking to train to play big minutes because I wasn’t always a guy that always played big minutes. So being a guy that can be depended on to be in the best shape coming into the season, not playing myself into shape, kind of already ready for that. It hurts now but I feel like I can play until I couldn’t, to be honest.”
Since being reinserted back into the starting lineup, Russell is averaging 27.5 points, 2.4 rebounds and 6.4 assists while shooting 54.2% from 3-point range on nine attempts per game across eight contests.
If that production keeps up then it is hard to imagine the Lakers trading Russell at the deadline, even though the endless rumors will surely continue between now and Feb. 8.
D’Angelo Russell’s confidence is ‘through the roof’ right now
Considering how well he has been playing, Russell recently stated that his confidence is ‘through the roof’ right now. That was evidenced by him being will to hoist up a transition 3 after just turning the ball over twice, and of course he made it to give a boost for his team when the Lakers needed it most.
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