The Los Angeles Lakers are 10 games into the 2024-25 season and, outside of Anthony Davis, have looked relatively inconsistent. Guard D’Angelo Russell has been the biggest example of this, even getting sent to the bench by head coach JJ Redick. With a night off on Saturday, Russell decided to check out the South Bay Lakers in their 2024-25 G League opener.
There, he watched as South Bay absolutely dominated the Salt Lake City Stars by a score of 110-96. South Bay was the frontrunner from the jump and got impressive performances from several players, while all of the attention was on Bronny James. But the true stand-out of the night was two-way guard Quincy Olivari.
Olivari has become somewhat of a fan favorite with the work he did in preseason. And he showed all of that and more in the G League opener, finishing with 28 points on 7-for-15 from beyond the arc with 10 rebounds and six assists in 37 minutes. He looked virtually unstoppable, and Russell believes Olivari is too good to be playing down there.
“I just told him to stay humble,” Russell said of his conversations with Olivari. “It honestly looked like he was too good for being out there, respectfully. But I know how that can get you high and then have a bad game and it gets you lower, that’s just what it is.
“So I just told him to stay even-keeled. All those guys dominated the game. Bronny was solid, Q obviously dominated, Max Lewis, [Armel Traore], all of those guys were effective. They look hungry. So just keeping that hunger.”
Olivari certainly has looked the part of an NBA player thus far in his career, but it’s still very early and Russell is right to speak to him abut remaining humble through it all. The Lakers guard has absolutely fallen victim to that in the past and has finally become an even-keeled player himself.
But if he continues to perform that way at the G League level, Olivari should find himself with the Lakers in short order, especially if injuries continue to be an issue.
D’Angelo Russell staying committed to Lakers coaching staff
Coming off a career-year shooting wise, many were interested to see what D’Angelo Russell could bring under new head coach JJ Redick, who is looking to find new ways to bring the best out of all the players on the Lakers roster.
The two have regularly spoke about their relationship and communication being great, even as Redick made the recent decision to move Russell to a reserve role in place of the more defensive-minded Cam Reddish.
A year ago, a similar move was made with Russell moving to the bench and he was pretty open about not caring for the change. But now Russell is handling this much better and stressed the importance of not just himself, but the Lakers as a whole buying into what the coaching staff is teaching them and these systems they have implemented.
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