The Los Angeles Lakers were in the midst of a major slump, having dropped their last eight games heading into Friday night’s matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers. Even still, the franchise is in a good place with an outstanding young core of players led by D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, and Brandon Ingram.
Each of the Lakers’ young stars has shown flashes of greatness at different times this season and the team as a whole has bought into Luke Walton’s system. The team has a great chemistry and outside of a couple of recent showings, has shown plenty of fight and heart.
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Russell has stepped up as one of the leaders on this team and in an interview with Alex Wong of GQ, he spoke about everyone enjoying playing with each other:
We like playing with each other. I feel like we all want to play with each other, we all enjoy winning together. I know if we put it together as a team, it will start with us the younger guys.
Russell added that once the Lakers put everything together, it’s going to be scary:
Yeah, always. There’s so many different personalities on this team it’s going to be scary once we put it together and find that niche for us.
As a young team, the Lakers are going to be inconsistent and have ups and downs. After a good start to the season, the team is struggling right now and looks nothing like the squad that started the season.
Nonetheless, the team is still in a good place for the future with Russell, Ingram, Randle, Larry Nance Jr., and Jordan Clarkson. Surrounding them with veterans like Lou Williams, Timofey Mozgov, and Luol Deng also helps them grow on and off the court.
The Lakers have already proven that they can hang with some of the NBA’s best on any given night. The next step for this team is improving their consistency which will come in time. The future is indeed bright for this franchise, and the rest of the league is taking notice.