LOS ANGELES — Someday someone might recall the visual of D'Angelo Russell, relaxing outside the team hotel during his first year, reclining on a bellman's luggage cart of all places.
And the caption to the mental picture might be something about how unbelievably cool and unique Russell has always been—how even as a rookie he was perched like a rare bird on that cart, his creative flow unstoppable at any body angle and his confidence caged only when he so chooses.
Someone might bring up how Julius Randle spent so much of this same season, his second but really his first in the NBA, with his powerful frame folded into the Los Angeles Lakers' bench with his arm curled up for his hand to hold his chin—a regular pose not unlike that of Rodin's The Thinker.
Except Randle's face openly and consistently showed what he was thinking: frustration. And so the story might go that we could see back then how Randle was always uncommonly hungry to succeed. That even from the start he cared so deeply he was barely able to contain a rare vitality that was destined to be unleashed on NBA courts despite the heartbreak o ...
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Article written by Kevin Ding
Lost in Kobe’s Shadow, Russell, Randle Offer Lakers Vision of Bright Future
January 14th, 2016 by Kevin Ding Leave a reply »
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