Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers

It's hard to argue the following:

1. No Lakers player took more blame for the sweep at the ends of Denver than D'Angelo Russell.
2. Of all the key players the Lakers need to make decisions about this summer, most fans look at D'Angelo Russell as the player they have the least interest in keeping.

The reasons are pretty simple. Love him or hate him as a player, nobody would argue Russell showed out against the Nuggets. He was bad, and the Lakers suffered for it. Was he bad throughout the playoffs? No, and over 17 regular season games he performed pretty well, too. But when the Lakers needed him most, Russell wasn't anywhere close to good enough.

And he'll cost a good amount of money. Not $30 mil, but not $5, either. So is he worth what could be somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 mil a year?

How fans reacted to hearing him answer questions during exit interviews could shade their opinion. Certainly Russell didn't exactly beg for forgiveness, or even get that deep into his own failures in the Conference Finals. He acknowledged bad shooting, but expressed real confidence in his game at this point in his career. Nothing he said was necessarily wrong, but certainly he wasn't interested in reading the room, so to speak.

But what if the Lakers let him go? What are they giving up? Can they afford to let Russell's skill set leave without finding adequate replacements? Even with the understanding that his postseason struggles could repeat themselves, depending on the matchup?

It's a complex question, and one that will frame the offseason in a big way for the Lakers.

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: D'Angelo Russell is polarizing... but should he be a Laker next year?

SEGMENT 2: Diving into his exit interviews. Would contrition have helped? Is his confidence earned?

SEGMENT 3: What do the Lakers lose if they let Russell walk?

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