D’Angelo, Swaggy P & the Fall of Los Angeles
Sometimes professional sports feels like a heartless industry. Other times it’s more like a scene straight out of high school. The Los Angeles Lakers may not be the dominating force that they once were – in fact they’re on their way to setting the worst season record in franchise history – but somehow they still manage to find a way to hog the headlines. For example:
THIS WEEK: KOBE BRYANT PLAYS HIS LAST EVER GAME IN UTAH!
Man, what a mess. There are so many things about these Lakers for prospective GMs (take note Sean Marks) to point at and say “remind me not to do that” and right now the madness is circling around their 20 year old point guard D’Angelo Russell. The dude they took third overall in the last draft. The dude that as of recently has finally been playing the kind of basketball that’s gotten Lakers fans excited again about his potential. The dude who not a single player in the clubhouse will sit next to at breakfast, if you believe that golden nugget of information, ESPN’s best friend, the one they call: ‘Sources’.
ESPN.com: “At a recent breakfast meeting, one source said, no Laker would sit with Russell at his table. The source added that, in another instance, Russell came into the locker room and sat next to guard Lou Williams, who got up and walked away.”
What’s the cause of this childish drama? What is it that’s gotten multi-millionaire athletes acting out scenes from ‘Clueless’ and ‘Mean Girls’? Well, in typically LA fashion, it involves D-List celebrities, twitter gossip, illicit video recording and a whole lot of he-said-she-said.
DON’T MISS KOBE’S LAST EVER CLASH WITH THE CELTICS!
You’ve probably already seen the stories but here’s what happened: Back in December, Russell filmed a thing on his phone of him talking to Lakers guard Nick Young, aka Swaggy P, aka that useless dude on the wing that can’t shoot anymore. Young isn’t paying much attention in the video, but in it he admits to cheating on his fiancée, Australian… umm, is it fair to call Iggy Azalea a pop star? She did have that one hit song but while it was definitely popular for 15 minutes there, to put it in the same category as, well, actual music seems kinda harsh. To the concept of music. Technically she’s a rapper, but only in the same way that Donald Trump is technically a politician. Like, he’s running for president, but he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing, ya know. If she’s a real rapper then so was Rodney Dangerfield.
NO RESPECT! NO RESPECT I TELL YA! Ha, Rodney Dangerfield, what a legend. Also you don’t get to call yourself Iggy until you’ve crawled through broken glass on your bare skin while on stage. There is only one Iggy. As it was and as it ever shall be.
Anyway, regardless of their being the power couple of celebrity mediocrity, they’re still a couple. And Nick Young went and cheated on her. And he admitted to it without realising (there’s a point where D says "I'm glad you told my video all that."). And then, somehow, that video ended up on a twitter gossip site and all hell’s broken loose.
It wasn’t necessarily Russell’s fault that the video leaked. Maybe he sold it to the gossip leeches, or maybe he just showed it to a ‘friend’ who sold it. Or it was hacked from his phone. Russell says he’s got no idea how it got out but that’s not really worth much. He’s clearly not gone and deleted the thing and it showed up in the public realm all the same. A few days after it appeared, the Lakers were beaten 123-75 by the Utah Jazz – tied for the worst loss ever by LAL. (To be fair, it would have been clear worst had D not his a late three).
Did someone script all this? It’s like Hollywood’s swallowing itself up and regurgitating drama.
KOBE BRYANT VS DWYANE WADE – THEIR LAST EVER MATCH UP!
There’s actually a precedent on the Lakers, not a particularly recent one but a more divisive one. Back in 2003 Kobe Bryant pissed off a lot of people by telling investigators about Shaquille O’Neal’s apparent infidelities while he himself was the centre of a sexual assault allegation. O’Neal once rapped at a party that Kobe’s actions there pretty much cost him his marriage. Luckily for those lads there was no twitter back then.
You can see why Russell’s lost all trust in the locker room, but here’s the other side of things. Nick Young still cheated, so who’s the deceptive one?
Obviously this is a personal issue between them. That one had done something immoral already doesn’t matter, what matters is that someone he trusted took a silly prank too far and now it’s having real consequences. People are suffering, which is never cool. And the bloke who made the silly prank now has yet another obstacle to overcome as he tries to convince those that matter that he’s not an immature little kid. Coach Byron Scott has been hard on the lad, trying to teach him the valuable lesson of earning your dues. Most people probably agree that he’s not done a great job in that role. Most people probably agree that he’s not done a great job as Lakers coach at all. Russell had a month or two where he was hot fire and recently he’s slumped back. It’s hard to play guard when the players around you aren’t any good. You can’t facilitate on your own.
KOBE NEEDS ONLY 5000 MORE POINTS IN SEVEN GAMES TO OVERTAKE KAREEM!
The real drama from this whole thing is that this is what’s become of the Los Angeles Lakers. While one of the five greatest players the team has ever seen is out there every day accepting gifts and adoration on his retirement lap, the clubhouse is being torn to shreds by a feud between a 20 year old rookie with no guidance and a shooter that averages 7.3 points a game this season and whose celebrity inexplicably outweighs his ability on the court.
Compare the situation there to that of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Thanks to the Kevin Love trade, the Wolves have an extra talent or two and have been drafting high for a couple extra seasons. But as far as the right-here-right-now goes there’s very little between them on the court. The Wolves are 10 wins better off but neither ever had a hope of the playoffs. Each is stuck in the position of nurturing talent for the future and while Minny goes about it under the ruthless but generous tutelage of Kevin Garnett, as well as Kevin Martin and Andre Miller (and the legacy of Flip Saunders), the Lakers are trying to do the same with a disinterested Kobe Bryant, a sorrowful Roy Hibbert (who had his own falling out with Paul George in Indiana… allegedly) and Nick “Swaggy P” Young. Look, if you can’t set the example in Ws then you need to set it in culture and D’Angelo Russell can hardly be expected to two the line while the veteran leaders there don’t seem to care. That is why Karl-Anthony Towns is going to win the Rookie of the Year and D’Angelo Russell is not.
Oh, Los Angeles. City in the smog. What do you reckon Jack Nicholson, the notoriously unfaithful man that he is, thinks of it all…?
