D’Angelo Russell was not a smart person when he took that infamous video.
We could sit here and make the argument that a lot of 20-year-olds make dumb mistakes like the Los Angeles Lakers rookie did when he posted a video of teammate Nick Young bragging about all the women he’s slept with that aren’t his fiancée, rapper Iggy Azalea, to Snapchat. After all, kids post things that get them in trouble on Snapchat all the time. It’s just something Russell’s generation has grown up doing — posting first and thinking later.
But that doesn’t make secretly recording your teammate’s scandalous confessions and posting them to social media — when you’re on one of the most famous teams in sports, no less — any less of a dumb and messed up thing to do.
There’s a new twist to this tale now as well: reports claim that rapper Nicki Minaj, who apparently is feuding with Azalea, had someone capture the video and leak it online. And while that’s a really scummy thing to do too, let’s all remember who the real culprit in this story is.
Young is the one allegedly cheating on his future wife. He’s the one bragging about it to his teammates. He’s the one who is ruining lives in this situation. Young dug his own grave and wrote his own epitaph. Russell just sped up the funeral by capturing it on tape.
And it’s that point that makes Young’s flurry of since-deleted tweets so puzzling, like this one, immortalized online thanks to The Big Lead’s Rob Perez.
https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/715623616197431296
Where in the world does “Swaggy P” get off complaining when HE’S the one cheating on his significant other?
Russell doesn’t deserve to be isolated and shunned, and he certainly doesn’t deserve “stitches,” as one former NBA player insinuated, for breaking the bonds of NBA brotherhood. He didn’t deserve the boos he received from Lakers fans at Staples Center in L.A. on Wednesday night, either.
Screw the bro code, Nick. Just own up, shut up, grow up and go away.
Thumbnail photo via Mark L. Baer/USA TODAY Sports Images