When D’Angelo Russell joined the Lakers at the trade deadline, the team was in the 13th place in the Western Conference. There were serious doubts whether Los Angeles will make it to the postseason.
Since then the Lakers climbed up to the 7th place and went all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Team’s general manager Rob Pelinka said during the exit interview that one of the priorities for the Purple and Gold will be keeping their core players.
Russell, who became an unrestricted free agent, was asked about the possibility of returning to the Lakers next year and how the season could have gone if the team was together for the whole year.
“I said that from the jump. We had some success early when I first got here without having any offseason together, any real time to just kind of get things going and some confidence under ur best with our system and with the guys that we have,” he said. “We just kind of figured it out on the fly. So to have that success obviously there’s some positivity there.
“Would love to get the opportunity to see what that looks like, but this is a business and this is the NBA. So we’ll what opportunity presents itself and obviously I’ll do the best for myself.”
