D’Angelo Russell was benched by Lakers coach Darvin Ham in favor of Jarred Vanderbilt and Russell was asked by a reporter about how the demotion conversation went.
“That’s all I got for you,” Russell said after the Lakers’ 129-120 win over OKC. “I have nothing to add about the conversation. It is what it is. I have no comments or no headlines for you.”
The guard had been struggling recently, so Ham made the decision to demote him and the Lakers were able to snap their losing streak.
He responded by scoring 15 points off the bench and explained how, as long as the team’s winning, he doesn’t mind where he starts.
“Obviously we switched the lineup and the result was a win, so for me, that’s all that matters, Russell told reporters. “Just finding a way to impact winning and bring energy whenever I’m out on the floor. Starting is a different monster. You’re playing against starting units, you’re playing against the scouting report, you’re playing against a lot of things like that. When you come in [as a reserve] you got to jump back on where the starters left off at as far as matchups and things like that so figuring out ways to find some kind of advantage coming in at a later time.”
The 27-year-old also explained that he thinks the trio of himself, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura can do a lot on the floor together.
“Huge,” Russell said. “I think any aspect of the game that’s kind of lacking through those runs before we get on the floor, I think we make up for him when Coach [Ham] does those subs with that group. So it’s exciting to see what we can do with is.”
An almost 39-year-old LeBron James was the star of the show in the Lakers’ win, after he notched a 40-piece.
The switch out of Russell for Vanderbilt allowed James to work at a pace that suited him on offense.
“We add a lot of length from the perimeter to our wings all the way down to our center,” James told Spectrum Sportsnet’s Mike Trudell re having Russell out of the starting lineup.
