Lakers keeping future stars on bench

“Byron Scott said he envisions D’Angelo Russell & Julius Randle playing 20-25 minutes for the foreseeable future as they come off the bench”, tweets Baxter Holmes of ESPN.

If recent history is any indication, the Timberwolves could be dealing with a home crowd with split loyalties as outgoing Lakers star Kobe Bryant has been showered with cheers at each stop since announcing his pending retirement more than a week ago. The Lakers will play the sixth game of their eight-game trip when they visit the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday…. Take that Kobe haters, it’s not his fault at all, right?! The hope was that Kobe Bryant could come close to matching his previous level of play and the Lakers could surprise some teams.

But Russell and Randle – who were each averaging 28 minutes per game as a starter – played only 21 minutes a piece in their first game as reserves, a loss to the Raptors last night.

After striking out on big names this off-season, Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak added a couple of veterans to the core of exciting young players. “Montreal has a great vibrancy and it is one of the best races of the whole calendar and it has been a very good race for me for many years, so I hope that continues and I hope we keep it. It’s very important for Formula 1 because there are so many good Canadian fans”. “We played teams that could really score – you know, Houston, Phoenix – but if you look at the defensive ratings of those four teams, they’re not great”. Russell was political as possible. From a distance, it seems sad, and from any angle, it’s frustrating when guys like Russell are continually being overlooked while Bryant is given free rein to a per-game average of 5-for-18 field goal clunking. They will be replaced in the starting rotation for Lou Williams and rookie Larry Nance Jr.

Ups and downs are part of every rookie’s debut season especially with so little time in college basketball these days.

“If it wasn’t my last season, I probably wouldn’t have played”, Bryant said. “When he does that it makes our job a lot easier”.

I think Lakers fans have had enough of Byron, i tried to give him the benefit of the doubt… but he’s making it impossible for us support his decisions.

The Pistons were road tired and played like it as the Lakers (3-17) got one of their three wins that day, 97-85.

Bryant played his 38th and final game at The Palace, though a 2-of-15, five-point night left himself and numerous purple-and-gold-clad fans in attendance disappointed.

“From a personal standpoint, that game holds a tremendous amount of value, more than people think, aside from what took place on the court”, Bryant said.