Ehe Staples Center saw the return of one of its idols. It was not an NBA star. In fact, he doesn’t even look like a basketball player and looks much older than he is, but Alex Caruso won over the Lakers fans through dedication and effort. The guard returned to Los Angeles with the Bulls, his new team, was honored and took the victory against a team that loves him.
Caruso, the 27-year-old 1.93-meter shooting guard, has made a name for himself in the NBA after not being drafted in 2016. He tried out in the Summer League with the Sixers and signed a contract with the Thunder, who sent him to the G League. The following summer, he played the Summer League again, this time with the Lakers, and his performances earned him a contract. The idyll had begun.
Without the talents of many other players, but with a powerful physique, he became a fierce defender. A nightmare for rivals. The best ally for your teammates. Always intense, always on the ground fighting a loose ball. ‘Bald Mamba’ (The Bald Mamba), as he was nicknamed, became a pivotal player in the Lakers’ rotation. Its ceiling came with the 2020 ring, conquered in the Orlando bubble.
Last summer his contract ended. With so many veteran stars, the Angelenos could have benefited from Caruso’s dark work, but they had other priorities. According to his recent account, the Lakers made him an offer of $ 21 million for three seasons. The Bulls went after him, offering him $ 36.9 million in four years. The escort gave his former team the chance to make a counter offer. 20 million for two years would have been enough to continue, but from Los Angeles they referred to their initial figures.
“I think that was all they had. And at that moment I had to make a decision based on real life,” Caruso explains about his departure to Chicago. The Lakers used that money to sign Kendrick Nunn and re-sign Talen Horton-Tucker. “I am sure that if they had been even numbers and they could have offered me the same amount, we would have ridden into the sunset again, but the NBA. It is not a perfect world,” he laments.
So Caruso went to the Staples to face the Lakers, who prepared a tribute video for his time in the franchise. Cheers to his former teammates, he embraced effusively with LeBron James, received the applause of the fans and then helped to sink his team a little more. He played 34 minutes, missed the only shot he made, grabbed six rebounds, gave five assists and recovered two balls. Figures that go unnoticed before DeMar DeRozan’s 38 points, Lonzo Ball’s 27 and Zach LaVine’s 26 and that do not show the true magnitude of the intent that does not even seem like a basketball player.
