D’Angelo Russell and the Lakers agreed to a two-year, $37 million deal

D’Angelo Russell’s return to the Los Angeles Lakers last season ended badly. He just made sure there was more to the story.

The 27-year-old guard has agreed to a two-year, $37 million deal to stay with the Lakers after hitting unrestricted free agency, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Lakers acquired Russell at the trade deadline as the biggest piece in their comeback from the three-team trade that took Russell Westbrook off the books. That trade reunited Russell with his original team, with the Lakers selecting him second overall in the 2015 NBA Draft and trading him two years later, Partly because of the infamous Snapchat incident with Nick Young.

Russell later developed into an All-Star with the Brooklyn Nets and spent time with the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves before fate sent him to Los Angeles.

In his second run with the Lakers, Russell turned out to be better than Westbrook as the team’s starting point guard. While Westbrook was a notorious shooter, Russell shot 41.4% from 3-point range with the Lakers, who went 12-5 in the games he played. He ended up averaging 17.4 points and 6.1 assists per game as a Laker during the regular season.

The combo takes a hit in the preliminaries. Russell performed well enough in the first two rounds, but his disappearance in the Western Conference Finals was a major reason why the Lakers swept the eventual champion Denver Nuggets. In fact, his “invisibility” may have been generous, as his 10-for-31 shooting (2-for-15 from deep) and inability to stay in front of defenders made him nearly unplayable in the end, with only 15 minutes to play in Game 4.

There were calls to seat Russell midway through the series, however ESPN He reported that the Lakers were worried they might “lose” him if they demoted him in such a public manner. We can now see how this was done.