Rumors of the Los Angeles Lakers' widespread discomfort with the state of the team after the trade deadline were apparently accurate after all. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope told the Los Angeles Times' Tania Ganguli amidst the trade rumors involving the Lakers and Anthony Davis' New Orleans Pelicans.
“At the trade deadline, everybody kind of lost themselves,” Caldwell-Pope said. “The locker room changed. Everybody was pretty much worried about that — especially guys that haven't been through it. They were worried where they were going to end up. How they were going to do it. How it was going to mentally affect them.”
Davis requested a trade from the Pelicans in late January. His agent, Rich Paul, a longtime friend of LeBron James, made Davis' trade request known to the public, which resulted in not just a power struggle between Paul and the Pelicans, but dismay in the Lakers' locker room, per the Los Angeles Times.
What further rankled the Lakers' young players was that their names were included in the very public discussions.
At first, word leaked that the Pelicans wanted a package of several young Lakers. At a press conference shortly afterward, Kyle Kuzma said he took that as a compliment that another team wanted him.
But the tenor of the discussion changed when the Lakers began offering packages with several young players and multiple draft picks. When the trade deadline passed without a deal, Lonzo Ball posted an Instagram video celebrating.
At his exit interview on Wednesday, Kuzma told the L.A. Times that was the first time he and his young teammates realized “basketball is business.”
For his part, Lakers legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, during an impromptu press conference announcing his resignation, told Ganguli on Tuesday, “The young guys better grow up quick because this is part of basketball.”
It seems Caldwell-Pope and his young Lakers teammates got the message.
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