Column: Is D’Angelo Russell a hero or villain? Depends who you ask
D’Angelo Russell follows through after hitting a three pointer against the Timberwolves on February 2.
So Nick Young allegedly cheated on his fiancee, but D’Angelo Russell is the bad guy for making her aware of it?
As far as the Lakers locker room is concerned, yeah, he is.
Remember, ethics are relative, not absolute.
Russell could simultaneously be a hero to Young’s significant other, rapper Iggy Azalea, and a villain in his own clubhouse.
Never mind that it wasn’t Russell’s place to get involved in Young’s personal life.
As a member of the Lakers, his loyalty should be to his teammates and his interactions with them should be determined by what’s in their collective best interest. So long as Young’s behavior stays within the norms of this particular subculture, it’s not smart of Russell to expose it. This is professional sports’ variation of the so-called “guy code.”
Trust is a key component of successful teams and whatever trust his teammates had in Russell is now gone. If Russell secretly recorded Young’s confession of infidelity, the other players have to be wondering what he might do to them.
The backlash Russell is facing is of a similar vein to what Jose Canseco encountered when he released a book detailing widespread steroid use in baseball.
The problem wasn’t Canseco’s truthfulness – by all accounts, what he wrote was largely accurate. The issue was that Canseco potentially jeopardized the livelihoods of his former co-workers. He compromised the well-being of the group and, as a result, he was shunned.
Revealing the extramarital affairs of others is huge a no-no in clubhouses.
There’s precedent for this on the Lakers. Kobe Bryant’s long-running feud with Shaquille O’Neal escalated when Bryant told police of O’Neal’s indiscretions while being investigated for sexual assault in 2003. O’Neal was traded a year later.
Bryant was already an established superstar at that point in his career and the Lakers were set on building their team around him. Others on the team didn’t have the option of turning their backs on him.
Russell has no such luxury. Unless he can repair the damage he’s done, he could soon be playing elsewhere.
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