He’s about midway through his first 82-game season, so let’s go ahead and give D’Angelo Russell the benefit of the doubt and just chalk this up to him hitting the proverbial rookie wall. That’s really the only explanation for the bizarre post-game interview he gave to reporters after the Lakers’ loss to the Houston Rockets Sunday night.
Someone in the scrum initially asked Russell about Kobe Bryant’s seven first-quarter assists and what it was like to be a part of that, to which he responded “I don’t think I was out there. I just watched it.” The only problem is that Russell, indeed, checked into the game with 5:40 remaining in the first and played the rest of the quarter. Granted, Kobe racked up four of those dimes while Russell was on the bench, but the next three came after the rookie point guard checked in. Russell, however, wasn’t the recipient of any of those assists, so perhaps this is his passive-aggressive way of complaining that Kobe doesn’t pass him the ball.
The rest is basically him delivering multiple, clueless “I don’t know” responses to various questions, along with momentary lapses of memory regarding who the Lakers played the previous night (and subsequently letting a curse word slip when he’s reminded), as well as what day of the week it currently is. It’s tempting to read too much into this, but he should probably just get some rest before whoever it is they have to play sometime later this week.
