The NBA Draft commenced on Wednesday night, with Cooper Flagg landing with the Dallas Mavericks to kick things off.
According to a recent report, a disgraced former Los Angeles Lakers guard could join Flagg on the Mavericks after the highly anticipated NBA event ends.
"Dallas is now regarded as a leading suitor for D'Angelo Russell,” The Stein Line’s Marc Stein reported.
"The Mavs can make a free agent run at Russell because Kyrie Irving's new deal has a lower Year 1 salary than his $43M player option.”
The Lakers had no choice but to move on from Russell midway through the 2024-25 season. The Ohio State product was a respectable regular-season player in Los Angeles, but the postseason was a different story.
Unfortunately, Russell earned a reputation for underperforming under the bright lights during his 2.5-year stint with the Lakers.
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The 6-foot-3 guard would tease Lakers fans by efficiently dropping 20 points in one game and failing to score 10 the next.
Embarrassingly, Russell didn’t connect on a field goal or a free throw in Game 3 of Los Angeles’ 2024 first-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets after netting 23 points on superb previous splits in the last contest.
The Lakers eventually fell to the Nikola Jokic-led Western Conference franchise in five games, ending their season in late April.
Less than 40 games into this past season, the Lakers traded Russell, Maxwell Lewis, and three second-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets for Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton.
Russell averaged 12.6 points and 5.1 assists per game in 29 games with the Nets, shooting 36.7% from the field and 29.7% from three.
The Mavericks may give the ex-Laker a chance to revitalize his career alongside Flagg, Irving, and Anthony Davis in Dallas.
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