D'Angelo Russell Being Isolated By Los Angeles Lakers Teammates After Video Goes Public

By Brad Berreman

Kobe Bryant‘s farewell tour has helped obscure what’s on track to be the worst season in Los Angeles Lakers history, and now the franchise is dealing with an off-court distraction. A video went public over the last week showing rookie D’Angelo Russell recording a private conversation with Nick Young, where the latter admits to cheating on his fiancee, rapper Iggy Azalea.

Young does not appear to know he’s being taped, and ESPN.com has cited sources suggesting that tension in the Lakers locker room and teammates’ eroded trust in Russell contributed to a 48-point loss to the Utah Jazz Monday night.

The video surfaced via the Twitter feed of celebrity gossip website Fameolous, and it’s unclear how it got to that level. There have already been questions about Russell’s maturity this season, mostly from Lakers coach Byron Scott, but the vilification he’s getting for this specific incident has reached fever pitch quickly.

Russell should have deleted the video immediately, even if it was childish prank on Young, and he may not have specifically sent it to Fameolous. Until that piece of the story is made clear, calls for the Lakers to trade Russell is a step way too far. Leaning on Russell being a 20-year-old, and a millennial who is blissfully unaware of the ramifications of his actions, is also naive thinking since he has grown up in the instant, 24-7 world we live in.

If asked publicly Russell will surely claim his phone or related cloud was hacked, which may be the truth. Taking the video was wrong, with or presumably without Young’s knowledge, and not deleting it right away only made it worse. The sports corner of today’s world is often driven by the latest “hot take,” for better or worse, and delivering far-reaching conclusions about Russell will be the latest thing to drive clicks, social media mentions, video views and the like.

Russell will hopefully learn a valuable lesson from this incident, but using it as a referendum on his ability to ever be a trustworthy teammate and team leader is an overreaction.

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