Russell gets his first look at the NBA’s bright lights

The Lakers have Randle, Larry Nance and Russell as some of the main players on their summer league roster, while Towns joins LaVine and Tyus Jones for the Wolves.

And just as Randle raved about his new rookie teammate, D’Angelo Russell was likewise impressed by Randle. He then made a rookie mistake and looked directly into a superbright light attached to one of the television cameras. So far, so good for the No. 1 pick, who will be a high-upside target in the middle rounds of drafts.

Zach LaVine (left) squared-off against the Jordan Clarkson and his Los Angeles Lakers, but it was LaVine and the Timberwolves that came out with the win.

In almost 32 minutes of action, Towns scored 12 points on 4-10 shooting from the field which included going 0-2 on three-point attempts. Towns won a few battles, but lost others.

The score really doesn’t matter for the summer league.

Ryan Saunders, coach of Minnesota’s summer league team, said Towns’ debut was what one might expect from any rookie. He illustrated his exceptional court vision and passing ability with a drop-off dish to Black, who completed the sequence with a layup.

After going through what he described as a “training camp practice” on Monday, he said he is in better shape now than when he first arrived for one of Coach Byron Scott’s famous workouts. I mean real Contenders. Summer league has seen a procession of dominant scoring point guards in recent years, but Russell is a master distributor of the old school.

Everyone at UNLV, it seemed, was excited.

The Timberwolves leave Minneapolis on Thursday for the Las Vegas Summer League. Extra seats in the upper deck had to be opened to accommodate the crowd, most of whom wore Lakers purple-and-gold.

That chant, by the way, came 34 seconds into the game, and all he’d done to that point was make a free throw. Russell didn’t sign his contract until Friday afternoon and his availability was a source of conjecture among Laker fans, who monitored Twitter and Facebook for updates on Russell’s status. The first possession, he caught the rock along the baseline and hit a turn-around jumper in my face… a shot I’ve seen him hit literally a thousand times on TV.

There was plenty of criticism to go around when the Los Angeles Lakers reached a two-year, $48.5M deal with Kobe Bryant last season. “Ball-watching on defense, guys go backdoor at this level”.

“Don’t let other people’s perceptions affect you too much”.

While Russell’s performance was ok, you can see, even from these stats that Russell is going to have his imprint all over games.

Julius will have time to do even more of those “positive things” he showed, but it will be a paced process, which is ultimately for the best.

Towns and Russell have superstar potential and are strong candidates for rookie of the year, so the schedule might be starting with its most anticipated game.

“I was trying to get in the gym, but it was so crowded that I kind of just stayed off to the side”, he recalled. “Whatever he’s willing to teach me, I’m willing to learn”.