D'Angelo Russell re-signs with Lakers on 2-year deal
D’Angelo Russell averaged 17.4 points for the Lakers last season.
The Los Angeles Lakers are keeping their point guard in the fold. D’Angelo Russell re-signed with the Lakers on a two-year deal.
OFFICIAL: DLo's back ❄️ pic.twitter.com/V3VOazzh2W
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) July 7, 2023
The Lakers originally acquired Russell at the trade deadline last season from the Minnesota Timberwolves as a part of a three-team trade that dealt away incumbent point guard Russell Westbrook.
Russell played his first two NBA seasons with the Lakers after they chose him with the second overall pick in the 2015 Draft. He was a rookie during Kobe Bryant’s final season, and the point guard was the most consistently entertaining part of two poor Lakers teams before Magic Johnson traded him to Brooklyn in 2017.
Last season, he averaged 17.8 points, 3.0 rebounds and 6.2 assists in 71 games played split between the Timberwolves and Lakers. With the Lakers, he posted 17.4 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 6.1 apg in 17 games and performed well in the playoffs as the team reached the Western Conference Finals. He averaged 13.3 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 4.6 apg and was a double-digit scorer in five of the six games against the Golden State Warriors in the West semifinals.
The Timberwolves courted Russell hard when he was on the market in July 2019, when Brooklyn ultimately landed on a sign-and-trade deal that sent Kevin Durant to the Brooklyn Nets and shipped Russell to the Warriors. The Wolves eventually acquired Russell at the deadline in Feb. 2020 and teamed him with his Draft-class pal, Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Russell-Towns pairing never really took off, in part because of injuries for each player that often kept them from being on the court at the same time.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
