Ohio State Basketball: D’Angelo Russell finally living up to his potential

Former Ohio State basketball player D’Angelo Russell had a difficult start to his NBA career but is now becoming the player many thought he would be.

Since being drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers with the second pick of the NBA Draft in 2015, former Ohio State guard D’Angelo Russell had never really lived up to the hype. In fact, when he was traded to the Nets in the summer of 2017 by then new President of Operations Magic Johnson, he was written off as a bust after just his second season.

Honestly, I wasn’t ready to call him a bust but I wasn’t exactly sure how good he was going to be.

He was surrounded by controversy during his rookie season with the Lakers while averaging just 13.2 points and 3 assists per game. Numbers that just aren’t going to cut it, especially when wearing that historic gold Lakers uniform in which high expectations always follow.

Year two didn’t get much better either as D’Angelo improved his points per game to about 15 and his assists to around 5. With most organizations, that would be enough to be considered an improving young player. But obviously not for the Lakers organization as he was traded away to the Nets in favor of drafting Lonzo Ball with the number two pick in the 2017 NBA draft.

In his first season in Brooklyn, Russell averaged very similar numbers to that of his sophomore season in the NBA with 15 points and 5 assists. But he was out of the bright lights of Los Angeles and now playing for the least important NBA franchise in New York. This proved to be important for D’Angelo as the next season he would prove his doubters wrong.

In his fourth NBA season, and second with the Nets, Russell emerged as the team leader in an abundance of forms. The first and most obvious one is that he is the teams leading scorer averaging just over 21 points per game.

The second is that he got extraordinarily more confident and it showed in his demeanor on the court. He’s a beast and is going to let everyone know it.

D’Angelo Russell is now the budding NBA superstar that everyone thought he was going to be when the Lakers drafted him. Magic Johnson went on record saying that Russell was not a leader, instead opting for a player whose loud mouth dad would follow him around wherever he went.

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Russell said that the trade was the best thing that ever happened to him earlier this season and it is hard to argue with him. He made his first All-Star Game in his career and is the leader of a Brooklyn Nets team that made the playoffs this year as a six seed, upsetting the 76ers in the first game on the road with Russell scoring 26 in the victory.

On the flip side, it might have been the worst thing to happen to the Lakers as Magic Johnson has now resigned. They acquired Lebron James and still couldn’t make the playoffs, and much of their young core, including Lonzo Ball, seems to be increasingly injury prone.

In short, the Lakers organization is in shambles.

Patience is key in so many situations in the sports world. The Lakers are learning that firsthand.