Lakers: Alex Caruso outclasses Dennis Schroder in first post-LA matchup

Alex Caruso and Dennis Schroder were teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers last season and both players parted ways with the organization this past offseason.

Dennis Schroder reportedly turned down a four-year, $84 million contract from the Lakers during the 2020-21 season and saw his value plummet. He agreed to a one-year, $4.9 million contract with the Boston Celtics.

Alex Caruso was a fan-favorite in Los Angeles and with Bird Rights on Caruso is seemed like a no-brainer for the team to re-sign him. Instead, Caruso signed a four-year, $37 million deal with the Chicago Bulls. The Lakers decided not to offer that contract because of tax implications and the team looks foolish because of it.

Caruso and Schroder will square off three times during the 2021-22 season with the first matchup coming this week. With both players being guards, they naturally are going to log minutes directly against each other and that is exactly what happened in the first matchup.

And when the dust settled, one thing was clear.

Alex Caruso won the battle of the former Lakers by outclassing Dennis Schroder.

While the two guards shared the court with each other for quite some time, Caruso directly guarded Schroder for just over one minute of game time. That one minute proved to be disastrous for Schroder.

In that one minute Schroder was able to get up three shots against his former Lakers teammate, obviously trying to prove something against the guy he went up against in practice last season. While Schroder was looking to make a statement, he did the opposite.

Schroder bricked all three shots that he took against Caruso, laying a goose egg while Caruso guarded him. It is worse than that, though. Caruso baited Schroder to put up a floater near the rim only to emphatically block Schroder’s shot like his former teammate, LeBron James, to set up a Bulls alley-oop on the other end of the floor.

To make matters worse, Schroder officially guarded Caruso for 3:55 of game time in the matchup. Caruso only took two shots, making one of them, but in that 3:55 the Bulls scored 20 points. Not great for Schroder.

The Bulls ended up getting a come-from-behind victory over the Celtics via a big night from DeMar DeRozan, but the most compelling story as far as we are concerned is how badly Caruso outclassed his former teammate.

There is a reason why Laker fans are missing Caruso right now. He is a great basketball player and now that he is on another team NBA fans will realize it was more than Laker bias. He is the real deal.