Lakers News: Anthony Davis Weighs In On Impact Of New Players
The Los Angeles Lakers were dead in the water to start the season at 2-10. They picked up the slack a bit, but not enough to give their fans and organization hope to compete with the best teams in the league. Everyone knew what they needed to do to improve, but no one thought it was possible.
Never say never; the Lakers front office did the impossible and traded away future Hall of Famer Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz in part of a three-team trade and acquired D'Angelo Russell, Malik Beasly, and Jarred Vanderbilt. That trade changed the trajectory of the Lakers' season, and many experts and pundits knew it.
And now we're here, one game away from reaching the 2023 postseason; LA has come a long way, but the job isn't finished yet. The Lakers will host the Minnesota Timberwolves in the play-in tournament for a shot at the seventh seed tomorrow. LA superstar Anthony Davis caught up with the media on Monday and expressed what the new guys have brought to the team.
Westbrook is and will go down as one of the greatest point guards ever, but he was not a good fit alongside Davis and LeBron James. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see it; that big three never fit from the start and lasted longer than it should've.
That's all in the past now, and with their newly constructed team, the Lakers look like a real force in the West. D'Angelo Russell is an above-average point guard who can hit the three and take the pressure off James. Malik is a good spot-up shooter and a versatile three-point shooter, and Vanderbilt is a capable defender who can guard one through four and is an energizer bunny.
I cannot believe the Lakers were able to pull off a trade like that, and thank goodness they did. That trade saved their season, and they'll need those three players to contribute at a high level if they want any shot at winning a championship.
Hopefully, we got a ton more Laker basketball ahead of us, and our guys do their thing.
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