Los Angeles Lakers: Are we all setting Alex Caruso up for disappointment?

Los Angeles Lakers guard Alex Caruso has become a very popular player, but is he being set up to disappoint this upcoming season?

The Los Angeles Lakers have a new crowd favorite in Alex Caruso. He came on out of nowhere last season when the Lakers shut down the stars. Now that Alex Caruso is starting to get attention, are Lakers fans expecting too much?

The one thing that all sports fans love is a come-up story. It’s Hollywood, right? The Los Angeles Lakers actually had one a couple of years back when they called up Andre Ingram from the G-League for a 10-day contract to play the last two games of the season.

Then Ingram went out the first game and stole the hearts of NBA fans everywhere when he scored 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field which included 4-of-5 from distance.

It was the highest total in a rookie debut since Nick Van Exel dropped 23 points way back in 1993. At the end of the season, there were questions if the Lakers would bring Ingram back. Even though Andre Ingram did not breakthrough, he was a class act.

Last year when the Los Angeles Lakers roster was throwing up bricks from the 3-point line to start their own construction business, Lake Show Life made its own plea for the team to try to make the dream alive again. A couple of weeks later, Ingram was brought to the main roster. Only this time, everyone had woken up as Ingram never scored a point in the games he got in and was sent back to the G-League.

Then the next feel-good story in Lakers Nation started in early March when a 6’5 guard starting getting minutes when the (Hush, hush, wink, wink) tank for lottery position started with Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma modeling street clothes on the bench. What was perceived by many as Lakers’ opponents running the table and the unknown roster of the floor, something strange happened.

The Lakers finished above .500 and found a crowd favorite in the process. Most believe it happened in a loss against the Warriors.

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You thought LeBron was shook, think about how Kevin Durant, JaVale McGee and Klay Thompson felt after Caruso caught bodies under the rim. The NBA didn’t know what to do with this one. Caruso was believed to be some non-athletic playmaker who will be joining the G League after the season to continue his career.

That changed with two 20 point performances, including a 32 point, 10 rebound performance against the Clippers. But at times when the season was lost, Alex Caruso started a trend. He started dunking on people.

First, he dunked on Kyle Korver in Utah on a one-handed alley-oop dunk. Okay, that’s Kyle Korver, he’s a shooter.

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Then he dunked on Steven Adams in Oklahoma City going straight down the lane.

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But it was when Caruso tried to dunk on the NBA’s Defensive Player of the year, Rudy Gobert, people accepted this guy as a player in the NBA. The Lakers did too when they inked Caruso to a two-year, $5.5 million deal this summer.

With Caruso’s performance fresh in the minds of Lakers fans, many have this idea that Caruso will start. With Lakers fans salivating Caruso’s dominance over Clippers guard, Patrick Beverley and social media clips of his muscular arms that got him drug tested by the NBA (Seriously folks!), Caruso is in the first 5 seconds of his 15 minutes of fame.

Caruso discussed his appreciation for the fan’s support.

Even though Alex Caruso had his moments at the end of last season and now is a fan favorite, he’s still should be considered an unknown commodity. Remember most of his contributions came at as what Marv Albert would call “garbage time”.

Plus with the signings of Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Quinn Cook, Jared Dudley and the re-signing of the incumbent point guard, Rajon Rondo, where are Caruso’s minutes going to be?

Lake Show Life takes an in-depth look.