Thenoise around DeAndre Aytonhad been building for weeks.
You could feel it in the murmurs from fans, in the exasperated sighs on sports talk radio, and in the quiet frustration that follows a player whose talent and effort often seem to arrive on different flights.
“They’re trying to make me Clint Capela,” a frustrated Ayton said in the Lakers locker room after their last-secondloss to the Orlando Magicon February 24, according toESPN. “I’m not no Clint Capela!”
He scoredjust two points the following nightin the Lakers’ 113–110 lossto the shorthanded Phoenix Sunsand was benched down the stretch in the team’s next three games beforeleaving with an injurylast Thursday in Denver.
The noise only got louder after that. “Soft.” “Inconsistent.” “Disengaged.”
“He’s been getting a lot of backlash for his effort and his play. He understands it,” said Lakers’ guard Marcus Smart of Ayton at the time. “He wants to do good, and he wants to help this team, and I think that’s what’s more frustrating for him, because he’s trying.”
Fair or not, those labels and the backlash have followed the Los Angeles Lakers center this season like shadows stretching across a sunset. And on too many nights, Ayton hasn’t done much to make them disappear.
But on Tuesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves, they vanished.
It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t a 30-point explosion or a viral highlight reel. What it was, though, might have been more important; it was necessary.
Ayton finished with a 14-point, 12-rebound double-double in theLakers’ 120–106 victory,a stat line that doesn’t scream dominance on paper but carried enormous weight in the rhythm of the game. When the Lakers were sputtering early — shooting bricks, watching Luka Dončić start 2-for-10 from the field, and managing just 16 points in the first quarter — Ayton stepped into the vacuum.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
