D’Angelo Russell had a rookie season from hell. The Los Angeles Lakers first top five pick in the NBA Draft since they selected James Worth number one overall in 1982 had some high expectations from both fans and himself.
Russell wasn’t the starting point guard right away, he struggled to develop under Byron Scott and to top it off he was involved in one of the biggest scandals of the NBA season. He did have a bright spot when he was able to showcase that he had ‘ice in his veins‘ and also got the vote of confidence from Kobe Bryant.
Still, Russell struggled to meet expectations set for the number two overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. He’s now looking to put last season behind him and move towards a better future under new coach Luke Walton.
Russell said the following to Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times.
“Last off-season was Looney Tunes,” Russell said Tuesday. “Wasn’t real. I didn’t get nothing out of it.”
This off-season has been different for the second overall pick of the 2015 draft.
“Fun,” Russell said. “Real fun. The team, I feel like, is growing.”
“I feel like if I came into the league this year, in this environment, it wouldn’t have been as tough,” Russell said. “Even if Kobe was here, it still wouldn’t have been as tough. …
“The coaching staff, the whole atmosphere that this coaching staff brings is different. I’m not saying better, I’m not downgrading the last coaching staff. I’m just saying the atmosphere they bring every day is a winning mentality.”
“He deserved it; it was his time,” Russell said. “They expected so much from so many people, and then Kobe had his farewell tour, and it was just like, we put everything we had, expectations for everybody else, on hold. We gotta get through Kobe’s farewell tour and then we can continue with our process. So we kind of accepted that.”
“Everything I went through was new, and there was no guidance from the people that were supposed to give me the guidance,” Russell said.
“It could have been better,” he said. “It was my first year. I did the best I could do with what I could control. I’m not ashamed of it.”
