Lakers News: How Teammate Disses Led To Rui Hachimura's Best Night With LA
Rui Hachimura has been getting an earful lately... in both a negative and positive manner. We all know that Memphis Grizzlies shooting guard Desmond Bane wasn't in the best of moods and opted to hint that the new Laker's career night Sunday was a sort of a fluke. However, outside of him, the reception around Hachimura's 29-point performance has been amazing.
Fans have been active on every social media platform, pulling up stats that show what Rui did hadn't been done since the Showtime days. Sunday was easily the most comfortable he has ever looked rocking the purple and gold. An important thing to remember is that the 6'8" combo forward is still just 25 years old. We are still a couple of seasons away from really seeing what his prime looks like.
One of the plays that really got other Lakers going and up on their feet was when he went right Jaren Jackson Jr, who just won the 2023 Defensive Player of the Year award, and did not hesitate to throw down a jam.
Rui later went on to reveal that his teammates gave him some motivation to make that play.
"It was funny, just yesterday or two days ago," said Hachimura. "The whole team, we got into a conversation about how my dunk package is kind of weak and I was showing all my highlights from Youtube and they didn't like that. I told them 'Look man, this series I'm going to have one'. It happened today and it's just the way we be talking. They told me to be more aggressive."
(Via NBA)
They certainly did not have any bad things to say about that dunk, especially due to it coming in the fourth quarter of a tight game against Memphis.
It looks like Rui also shifted his attention to improving his three-ball as well, as he knocked down five out of six attempts. This is the exact version of him LA needs in order to win a ring.
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