Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell trolled himself and the infamous locker room video incident when giving advice to Ben Simmons in a new Foot Locker ad
D’Angelo Russell hasn’t always been shown in the best of light since joining the Los Angeles Lakers as the No. 2 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. The guard struggled out of the gate in the regular season, clashed with then head coach with Byron Scott, and so on. However, the most infamous incident obviously came at the end of the year when a cell phone video Russell took that showed Nick Young admitting to cheating on rapper Iggy Azalea was leaked.
The video leak sparked a ton of outrage and unrest within the Lakers locker room as questions of trust and maturity ran rampant. There are even still worries about many of those things when it comes to Russell, but the Lakers guard seems like he’s at a place where he can laugh about it now.
On Tuesday, Foot Locker released a new ad featuring the young stars of the league giving advice to incoming rookie Ben Simmons. When it came to Russell, he had a hilarious moment of trolling himself as he asked Simmons for his phone and then chucked it out the door and off the balcony before deadpanning, “Trust me:”
"WATCH future league mates @KarlTowns, @dloading & @DevinBook keep it 100 with @BenSimmons25 in our new #NBADraft spot!https://t.co/XAibm0G8Xn— Foot Locker (@footlocker) June 21, 2016"
Well done to the good people at Foot Locker because that’s absolutely hysterical.
Though it might be reading into it a bit, it’s also kind of a good sign that Russell is past this to a point that he can poke fun at himself. That in itself shows a bit of maturity on the matter even with some remnants of the situation still lingering.
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Rumors have surfaced recently that Russell could be on the trade block for the Lakers with reports stating they covet a top-5 pick. Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but a commercial like this that makes the guard so endearing to fans as he pokes fun at himself makes you hope as a fan that he sticks around.