Lakers Won’t Trade D’Angelo Russell Over Incident With Nick Young

Things have gone from bad to worse for the Los Angeles Lakers this week with rookie point guard D’Angelo Russell shedding a negative light on the organization. Russell recently taped a conversation with teammate Nick Young in which the veteran forward admitted cheating on rapper wife, Iggy Azalea.

Unfortunately for the rookie, and the Lakers organization, the video has leaked. As a result, Russell has quickly become public enemy number one in Los Angeles with the scandal being front-page news around the country.

Although Russell has made one of the worst rookie mistakes in NBA history, the first-year point guard isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. According to Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report, the team doesn’t plan to part ways with Russell in a trade over the summer:

The Lakers are not happy that Russell has cast the franchise in this light now—and there are those in the organization fearful that he has made himself another hurdle to be overcome in the Lakers’ effort to add much-needed proven free-agent talent. But the club is not about to give up on him over this: a foolish, ill-conceived undertaking that was at least not malicious in intent.

The Lakers believe in Russell’s talent and hope he learns a lesson the hard way here about needing to be more professional.

With Russell making such an ill-advised mistake that’s receiving around-the-clock national coverage, the Lakers brass may have a tough time recruiting free agents this summer. Los Angeles will be armed with potentially more cap space than any team in the league and will be setting their sights on signing Kevin Durant.

Along with Durant, the Lakers brass will be hoping to land a few more talented players in free agency. Hassan Whiteside and Al Horford are a couple of names that may ultimately be linked to the Lakers once free agency gets underway in July.