Insider Shares Lakers Cold-Blooded Move With Former Fan Favorite

The Los Angeles Lakers lost at least one fan favorite in free agency. Rob Pelinka made some big moves in the offseason, but he also lost some of the veterans. Alex Caruso is one of them.

Caruso left the team in free agency to sign with the Chicago Bulls. It’s interesting to note that the Lakers didn’t even try to keep him around.

Sam Amick from The Athletic reported that LA didn’t try too hard to win the competition against Chicago. Oh, wait. There was no competition.

“I think it is still a tough look for the Lakers, and the way it went down was Alex, and this didn’t surprise me, I’d heard some stuff going into free agency that, for whatever reason, Alex was not feeling the love from the Lakers in terms of the communication and connectivity if you will, and so in that sense, it didn’t surprise me that he wasn’t back,” Amick explained on The Athletic NBA Show podcast. “But he gets the four-year, $37 million offer from the Bulls. They go back to the Lakers and there just was no interest in countering.”

LA Lakers lost their fan favorite

The Lakers let Caruso walk. They played a different game with Russell Westbrook. They wanted him on the floor.

“I haven’t gotten clarity from the Lakers side on how they saw Alex, but I think it’s safe to assume the tax number with his situation played a big part,” Amick added. “But still, there was a sense of disappointment without question on the Alex side about the fact that it wasn’t a push to, ‘what if we came in at 80% of that number?’ There was none of that back-and-forth. There was, I’m paraphrasing, but essentially just ‘good luck in Chicago’ type of feeling to it.”

Ramona Shelburne from ESPN reported that the Lakers wanted to give Caruso $7 million. The Bulls wanted him more, and they made a really good offer. He couldn’t say “No” to this one. Caruso is out and his former teammates are happy for the opportunity he was just given.