Lakers News: LA Stars Thanked New Teammates For Helping Finish Above .500
Last night, thanks to their 121-107 win over a very depleted Phoenix Suns team, your Los Angeles Lakers have officially finished above .500 this season falling a brutal 2-10 start.
This club looked very different then, with a lopsided depth chart that included Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, and Kendrick Nunn (three past-their-prime point guards who together gobbled up $65.4 million in salaries). Lonnie Walker IV, now out of LA's rotation, was starting back then.
Now, with D'Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley, Rui Hachimura and Mo Bamba all a part of their rotation, the Lakers have been a far more competitive bunch. Since adding the new parts (bench guard Davon Reed is also new to the club, but hasn't been part of its rotation), the Lakers have gone 17-8 down the season's home stretch.
Stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis are well aware of their new teammates' impact on the team's late-season turnaround, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
"I was just telling AD [Anthony Davis], I was like, 'Man, can you believe that we're going to finish this season above .500? After everything that's gone on this season?'" James said. "We've turned this thing around. And it's the regular season, obviously, there's a lot more basketball to be played. But to know that we're going to finish a few games above .500? It's pretty cool."
According to McMenamin and Jovan Buha of The Athletic, Davis explained that he and James also gave a shoutout to their new colleagues after finishing an above-.500 record on the year.
“I mean, the way we started 0-5, 1-5, 2-5 and 2-10, who wouldn't [thought] we would've finished the season above .500? We were joking with some of the other guys. Everybody was like, 'Yeaaaaaaah!,'” Davis said. “We pointed to some guys and were like, ‘We thank y’all. It didn’t look like we were going that way to start the season. Man, we just kept pushing and kept grinding. And obviously the guys that were able to come in here helped us get some more wins and ultimately finish above .500.”
The Lakers will wrap up their season tomorrow against a Utah Jazz team that would prefer to lose, to marginally improve its lottery standing. Los Angeles will at least have a shot of skipping the play-in tournament altogether and finishing as a fifth or sixth seed, depending on what happens in the Los Angeles Clippers' and Golden State Warriors' final games.
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