Rivers: Lakers gave up on Russell too soon

LOS ANGELES — After the Lakers basically discarded D’Angelo Russell, he came back to town as the author of his own Hollywood success story — an All-Star leading the Nets’ playoff push.

Clippers coach Doc Rivers has known Russell not just from coaching down the hall in Staples Center, but from his son, Austin, playing summer ball with Russell during their Florida school days. He suggested the other team in town gave up on the young guard too quickly, then saw Russell light his team up for a gamehigh 32 points Sunday night in the Nets’ 119-116 loss.

“He played at Montverde [Academy] in Orlando. He played a lot in the summer with Austin [Rivers], so I’ve been able to see him for a long, long time,” Rivers said. “I was disappointed early on, because I just thought that he was really good. Sometimes, you’ve just got to wait on a kid.

“The same thing with teams. Especially in this young group. You look at each draft and there’s guys that come out at 19 and they don’t take off right away. They get moved around, and the next thing you know, they’re players. It happens more than we know, and it happened to D’Angelo.”

Nets coach Kenny Atkinson, who has both aided in and benefitted from the 23year-old Russell’s growth, agrees that young players simply have a learning curve they must go through.

“Yeah, I don’t know what that development window looks like. Some guys it’s not one year,” Atkinson said. “There’s only LeBron; I can’t think of a ton of guys it happened for in one year, Year 2. The way I look at it, it’s a three-, four-year process.

“He gets obviously a lot of credit for his development, but I also think it’s right time, right place for him. He’s matured so much and he obviously got a huge opportunity with us. We handed him the ball from Day 1 and again, just continues to improve.”

Spencer Dinwiddie didn’t score until 10:25 left in the fourth quarter, entering the period 0-for-9. ... Rodions Kurucs fouled out in just 12:56 of court time.