Basketball is a lot more fun when winning is involved, and the Lakers are on quite the winning run. Despite some frustrating losses along the way, the team has been victorious in 12 of their last 17 games.
Consequently, the vibes are pretty great right now!
At the center of that is D’Angelo Russell, who has really brought great vibes to the Lakers throughout his second stint. The latest example of that came during Sunday’s historic game from Anthony Davis.
In one of his best games as a Laker, AD put up a 25-25-5-5 stat line that had never been done in NBA history. Asked after the game if he knew what type of game he was having, or if he was only two blocks shy of a 5×5, he said he didn’t know…until D’Lo started egging him on.
“I just heard D’Lo on the bench just say ‘I bet you can’t get a triple-double with steals,’” Davis said. “He told me I had seven steals. The rebounds, I didn’t know much about. I didn’t think I had that many. I think I had five at half…I knew I probably had at least 15 or something like that but 25, I didn’t know that.”
Honestly, every team needs a teammate like D’Lo. For all the labels he’s had during his career, including the ones unfairly placed on him, D’Lo has been a fantastic teammate — and friend — in his time with the Lakers in the second go-round. And the vibes are so, so much better than Russell Westbrook’s time in Los Angeles immediately before him.
D’Lo really just has incredible aura.
While this Lakers team has been capable of some truly, wildly frustrating losses, the highs with them are about as fun as any recent team. The team has great chemistry that has allowed them to not lose grasp of the rope even as things really felt like they could spiral this season.
Hopefully, the rest of the season will be full of more moments like this and fewer of the frustrating ones.