No. 1 Benching Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell.
The team’s biggest mistake so far was benching Randle and Russell, the putative future faces of the franchise. Randle was playing solid ball at the time, but has floundered since—not to mention it has hurt his morale. Likewise, Russell was just starting to look more comfortable when he was demoted.
Whether it is Scott singling Randle or Russell out for harsh criticism in his post-game comments, benching them in the fourth quarter of most games, or giving them inconsistent minutes and unpredictable player combinations on the court, it has all resulted in frustration and impeded their ability to get comfortable in any one role.
The result of this mismanagement has been that Randle and Russell have been wildly inconsistent all season. Randle’s offensive game has taken several steps backwards while Russell looks good one night and bad the next. Midway through the season, the Lakers have no idea what they really have in either player. The biggest goal for the remainder of the season should be to find out. The only way to do that is to start both players and give them quality minutes and a quality role consistently, somewhere around 30 minutes per night.
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Will it happen? That’s hard to say as Scott is hard to predict. But, if the Lakers don’t make Russell and Randle the focus of the remainder of the season in a year riddled with poor decisions, this will be the biggest mistake by far.