We all know that it is the stars and superstars of the NBA that play the biggest roles in winning championships. However, contributions from role players are extremely important. Even Michael Jordan himself once relied on Steve Kerr to hit the game-winning shot. There’s a lot of value in having players who thrive with fewer touches.
During the 2019-20 season, Alex Caruso was a role player who helped the Los Angeles Lakers win the championship. His perimeter defense and hustle were very useful to the Los Angeles Lakers, and he knew how to pick his spots on the offensive end.
Despite the fact that the Los Angeles Lakers clearly got great contributions from Alex Caruso, he ended up going to the Chicago Bulls in free agency. However, according to Rob Pelinka, it seems as though they did try to bring Caruso back before he made his decision to leave the Lakers. This would contradict a prior report by Ramona Shelburne, who stated that the Lakers didn’t want to re-sign Alex Caruso even though he gave them a discount.
Rob Pelinka on Caruso going to the Bulls: "Alex was tremendous here as a championship player," and that the Lakers will forever be grateful for his contributions. "We pursued him and wanted to keep him," but says Alex decided to go a different way.
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) September 23, 2021
There’s no doubt that Alex Caruso was valuable to the Lakers during their championship run, and that his absence may hurt the team. However, the Los Angeles Lakers managed to acquire a lot of good free agents, and their big move of the offseason was bringing in former MVP, Russell Westbrook. The Lakers will still have a very good chance of winning the championship next season, Caruso or not.
The situation for Alex Caruso with the Chicago Bulls is solid as well, and he’ll be playing with some great players such as Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, and DeMar DeRozan. There’s no doubt that he can be a solid role player for that team, and his playoff experience will be highly useful to a team attempting to break their playoff drought.
It seems as though things worked out for both the Los Angeles Lakers and Alex Caruso, and hopefully, both are able to have some success during the 2021-22 season.
