D’Angelo Russell walked back onto the court where, an hour earlier, he’d just wrapped up his best basketball game as a Laker.
He grinned as he looked at the mostly empty Crypto.com Arena.
The Lakers had just beaten the Milwaukee Bucks 123-122 without LeBron James. Russell made the go-ahead basket to give him 44 points. He’d scored 21 of the Lakers’ 27 points in the fourth quarter, tied for the third most by a Lakers player in the final quarter.
It was his moment.
In his mind, it always is.