The Los Angeles Lakers finally pulled the trigger on a deal.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the Lakers agreed to send D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/a>, Maxwell Lewis, and three second-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>\u00a0and Shake Milton<\/a>. As with many trades, the jury is out on the winners and losers of this transaction<\/a>. However, the Lakers look like they were able to solve a frustrating problem with this move.<\/p>\n After years of nearly incessant speculation<\/a>, the Lakers finally parted ways with Russell. The former No. 2 pick has had several solid games in purple and gold. Nonetheless, those stretches don\u2019t outweigh his overall performance, which has largely been underwhelming.<\/p>\n Since joining the Lakers midway through 2022-23, Russell has averaged 16.6 points and 5.9 assists per game on 45.2 percent shooting from the field (39.8 percent from three). This season has been his worst, as he\u2019s averaging 12.4 points and 4.7 assists per game on 41.5 percent shooting from the field (31.3 percent from three). Even worse, these numbers are startlingly similar to his playoff production with the Lakers. In those 21 postseason games, he\u2019s averaged 13.5 points and 4.5 assists per game and made just 41.4 percent of his field goals (31.3 percent of his threes).<\/p>\n If he was playing on a team that didn\u2019t have legitimate championship aspirations, that wouldn\u2019t matter as much. However, winning an NBA title has all but always been the main goal for the Lakers. With LeBron James<\/a> now staring down Father Time, Los Angeles is under even more pressure than usual.<\/p>\n Furthermore, though Russell\u2019s been a good soldier since Lakers head coach JJ Redick removed him from the starting lineup, he\u2019s been known to hold grudges<\/a> when he feels slighted. There haven\u2019t been any reports or other indications that there was a falling out between he and Redick. Nonetheless, the tension could\u2019ve been palpable behind the scenes.<\/p>\n What is known about Russell\u2019s appraisal of Redick is that he\u2019s stopped going out of his way to tell the media about just how great he is<\/a>. That could simply be coincidental but it\u2019s notable nonetheless. Removing Russell from the equation does impact their overall talent level but it could still be addition by subtraction.<\/p>\n If spark plug Shake Milton<\/a> can shake loose, Russell\u2019s departure is even easier to stomach. With that in mind, Milton has averaged 11.3 points and 3.3 assists per game since the Nets traded Dennis Schroder<\/a> to the Golden State Warriors. In those six games, he\u2019s shooting 44.6 percent from the floor and 37.5 percent from three.<\/p>\n He isn\u2019t quite as good as Russell but he\u2019s a talented player<\/a>. He can more than likely play the role that was required from the Ohio State product after his demotion to the bench.<\/p>\n As strange as it may seem, Russell \u2014a former top-three pick \u2014hasn\u2019t consistently stepped up in big moments. Yet, Austin Reaves<\/a> \u2014who went undrafted \u2014has. This is among the reasons the writing for Russell was already on the wall.<\/p>\n Though Reaves has emerged as one of the better young guards since being undrafted, he shouldn\u2019t be outplaying Russell. Especially not when his career-high is 17.7 points per game, which he\u2019s averaging this season. In fact, Reaves\u2019s relatively modest production has prompted Lakers icon Magic Johnson<\/a> to say his former team needs to acquire an established go-to scorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n With that being said, Reaves has posted 16.9 points per game in the playoffs. However, he\u2019s shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 40.4 percent from deep in his playoff career. The difference between his efficiency and Russell\u2019s isn\u2019t just significant on paper. While Russell\u2019s attempts clang off the rim, Reaves\u2019s go down like hot chocolate in December.<\/p>\n Los Angeles might not know if they can count on Reaves to consistently carry a heavy scoring load. He has<\/em> scored at least 25 points in three of his last five games while often being their primary facilitator, continuing to reward the Lakers\u2019 well-documented faith in him. \u00a0Regardless of his eventual role though, he made it that much easier to look away from Russell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Los Angeles Lakers finally pulled the trigger on a deal. On Sunday, the Lakers agreed to send D\u2019Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis, and three second-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Dorian Finney-Smith\u00a0and Shake Milton. As with many trades, the jury is out on the winners and losers of this transaction. However, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":114821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1608,6,62],"tags":[4556,307,2279,1382,3811],"class_list":["post-114811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-nets","category-nba","tag-austin-reaves","tag-dangelo-russell","tag-jj-redick","tag-nba-trade","tag-shake-milton"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114822,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114811\/revisions\/114822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Writing Was On The Wall For Lakers, D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/h2>\n
Shake Milton Shaking Loose<\/h3>\n
Is Austin Reaves The Answer?<\/h3>\n