EL SEGUNDO — D’Angelo Russell breezed through the Lakers’ training facility on Friday morning with the air of someone more than comfortable in his new surroundings.
Why shouldn’t he? He’s been here before.
The 6-foot-4 guard (who turns 27 next week) re-introduced himself this week to the franchise that drafted him No. 2 overall out of Ohio State in 2015, only to trade him away two years later in part over concerns about leadership and maturity. Whether Russell has grown in those areas in the six years he’s been away will be key to the Lakers’ long-odds playoff hopes with 26 games remaining, but he sounded more than up for the challenge of joining the team midstream and trying to push them back to the postseason.
“I’m a grown man, now; I’m not a child,” Russell said Friday, in the first press availability of his second Lakers tenure. “I’m just excited to showcase it.”
Russell (from Minnesota) was the headline addition of the five players that the Lakers added in the 24 hours prior to the NBA trade deadline, alongside Malik Beasley (from Utah), Jarred Vanderbilt (from Utah), Davon Reed (from Denver) and Mo Bamba (from Orlando). Of the quintet, Bamba is the only one who is not expected to be available Saturday against Golden State, serving out the last installment of his four-game suspension after a scuffle with Minnesota’s Austin Rivers.
Time is of the essence. The Lakers are 25-31, as of Friday morning 2½ games out of a play-in berth (seeds 7-10) and 4½ games behind the sixth-place Phoenix Suns (who have added 13-time All-Star Kevin Durant). The Lakers have held close with the Western Conference pack all season, but they haven’t broken into it.
As big man Anthony Davis said with a pained inflection on Thursday night: “I hate to say it’s gonna take time because we don’t have time.”
But while the incoming players said they hadn’t had much time to talk about their roles yet with Coach Darvin Ham, it’s pretty…
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