D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

I agree it should come from the core group but are those guys mature enough themselves to handle this?

Wouldn't it just be easier for the veterans to dismiss it and tell the team to get over it?

Ex: "Russell you're dumb as hell for doing something like that, you're not in HS anymore and you need to act like it. What's done is done and everyone needs to get over it now" something in that tone.

It becomes a bigger deal if you make it a big deal or he could do a team apology but I don't see him doing that.

 

This summer just got a lot more interesting.

 

Yea but not in a good way. Team Chemistry just got flushed down the toilet.

The draft and free agency weren't stressful enough, now we have a torn team.

 

I'm not trying to minimize his behavior at all because it was idiotic, but shunning and ostracizing him as punishment is almost as immature. Nick I can understand keeping his distance, but the rest of the team's behavior is disgraceful. They need to bring him closer and lovingly set him straight and let him know they're hurt and mad, but they'll get through this together. Reminds me of this internet story that circulated years ago:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/nhe-131036/
Or
One of my favorite quotes:
"May you love me the most when I deserve it the least because that is when I need it the most."

 

I'll be 100% honest. I'm a Russell stan, I like Randle, and Clarkson; I think they all got very good upside. However, none of them are 'transcendent' talents. After tonight's story, everyone on this roster can be traded for all I care. I'd take calls on every one of them. The loss by 48 did it for me. This story makes me even more frustrated and angry.

I'm not into rebuilding with kids. I want vets/All-Star talent and if we have to give up one or more of the kids, I'm all for it.

 

The 1st thing I thought of when this went viral was.. "Why would any Free Agent want to come play with D'Angelo Russell now..?"
Really sucks...

 

Yeah I was pretty vocal about how big a deal this was. It's totally unexceptable.

I don't blame his teammates for shunning him either. These guys are humans and they must be furious. Someone can step in and alleviate the tension but it still won't resolve the trust issue. Trust and emotion runs deep no matter what your conscience tells you. This could hurt the team for quite a while.

The only way Russell can help himself is to embarrass himself the same way he humiliated Nick. He needs to hold a press conference and confess that he screwed up and genuinely apologize to Nick and his teammates. Perhaps a tear or two will help. No excuses. Man the f*** up.

 

This is so silly I almost had to pinch myself to make sure this isn't a crazy dream. I mean, really D'angelo?

PS. Did this cause a break-up between Nick and his girl?

 

Obviously this shows his immaturity and he's an idiot for even taking a video like that, but it seems like he never intended for the video to go public and that he might have legitimately been hacked. For all I know, he immediately "deleted" the video after joking around with Nick, yet his iPhone then just stored it in the "Recently Deleted" folder that a hacker could've easily accessed.

It would really suck if we got rid of one of the most talented young players I've seen in a while over something stupid like this.

 

awesome. as if things couldn't get any worse with this team

really, really dumb move on russell's part. i honestly don't blame the guys for wanting nothing to do with him. he's going to have to earn the trust of the locker room back

 

Offseason is going to be AWESOME...
"Come, join us. r******* coach, incompetent FO and a snitch".

 

I'm at a loss of words. Since I literally can't bear any more bad Lakers related news, I'll try to be optimistic here. If this report is true and the team has turned on Russ, this might actually help him grow and mature faster. This is assuming he gets some freaking guidance from somebody. I hope he has other mentors than Arenas. Kobe, even if he is on his way out, would be my choice.

BTW - aren't we overreacting a little bit with the trading ideas? What he did was incredibly dumb and childish, but he's also a young kid. I'm not defending him, IMO he deserves a slap in the face for doing that, but that doesn't mean he can't be a great Laker someday. Let's not throw that out the window just because of this incidend, as disturbing as it mey be. The last leader of our beloved franchise also did some incredibly stupid things back when he was younger and he turned our pretty good from pure basketball perspective.

 

This is a greasefire

A heartless 15 win greasefire...blow it all up

 

Should have kept Nash around...

 

Man. I actually thought the same thing. To be honest I already wanted to blow the whole thing up. No one is untouchable.

I've never been so disappointed with this team. From top to bottom it's just a mess.

 

As far as Russell, this would be the point where if he was my younger brother I'd literally smack him in the back of his head multiple times, tell him how badly he f'd up, and that he needs to make this right with everyone. Luckily the offseason is rapidly approaching and the Kobe farewell tour will dominate our last few games. But yeah, this was really really dumb. ESPN jumping on it just made patching this up a million times more difficult. He needs to say something. A sincere public apology is a good start.

That said, it would have been nice to read that the veterans were stepping in to help calm the situation down instead of fanning the flames. I imagine most of them have one foot out the door similar to Kobe as they have clearly checked out of the games.

The offseason definitely just got more interesting in a bad way.

 

Hold a team meeting and rip his a** over this, shunning him doesn't solve anything.

Shunning/isolation = Frustration/rage

Sit down meeting with whole team = Realization/remorse

It's absurd no one is stepping in and handling this the right way. It's a perfect example of where this franchise is at, make a mistake and fix it with another one.