March 31--Lakers rookie D'Angelo Russell said he felt ill about the consequences of the leaked video he shot of teammate Nick Young talking about women who were not his fianc饬 singer Iggy Azalea.
"I feel as sick as possible," Russell said Wednesday at Staples Center before the Lakers played the Miami Heat. "I wish I could make things better right away but I can't."
Russell said he did not know how the video, which was shot months ago, appeared within the last few days on a celebrity gossip Twitter feed.
"Honestly, no. This just got in the wrong hands," he said. "It wasn't a prank. It wasn't something for everybody else to see. It was for my eyes, his eyes only."
Young spoke briefly to reporters a few minutes before Russell in a packed interview room.
"What happened is what happened. We've got to work on it," Young said. He did not take any questions from reporters.
Russell took questions for about five minutes and said he apologized to Young.
"If I've lost anybody's trust, I'm going to work my tail off to gain it back because that's something you need for a winning team," Russell said. "You need everybody to trust each other. You need the first guy to trust the 15th guy."
Young is engaged to Azalea but appeared to acknowledge meeting another woman at a club in the dimly lit video.
"You was 30 and she was 19?" Russell asked in the video, an apparent reference to the age difference between Young and the woman. Young did not know he was being filmed.
Russell, 20, seemed remorseful Wednesday.
"There's really no explanation for that topic of discussion," he said before referring to a jovial relationship with Young. "We play around and we joke and we laugh and we say things that you don't really repeat. That was just an incident of just 'playing too much goes wrong.' I take the full blame for that, recording the video. But leaking the video wasn't me."
The Lakers (15-59) haven't had good on-court chemistry while stumbling toward the worst season of their 68-year existence.
Just the same, Lakers Coach Byron Scott said he was "absolutely" concerned about trust issues in the locker room as the latest controversy enveloped the Lakers.
"We'll see if it festers during the game, but you've got to have some concern," he said. "We'll see what type of character we have in this locker room when it's all said and done."
Russell, the No. 2 overall pick in last year's draft, had an unremarkable rookie season until an eight-game burst that started at the end of last month. He averaged 23.3 points over that span but faded the last two weeks and scored only five points Monday against Utah in a 48-point loss.
