In case you didn’t already realize it, the Lakers are a complete mess. But not just the kind of mess that we watched unfold this past season — it was reportedly a top-to-bottom dysfunction that included players contributing to draft decisions and an odd Rob Pelinka story about Heath Ledger.
The ESPN bombshell story may even drive a wedge between a pair of college teammates.
Lakers guard Josh Hart won a national championship at Villanova, and he spent his senior season in the same locker room as then-redshirted freshman Omari Spellman.
According to the ESPN story, the Lakers were prepared to take Spellman with the No. 25 pick in the 2018 draft, but Pelinka unilaterally walked back on that decision after Hart agreed that there were “concerns” about Spellman.
Spellman wasn’t exactly pleased to read that section of the report and called out Hart on Twitter.
The section that Spellman saw in the tweet did leave out more decidedly positive details about that conversation, though. Hart reportedly praised Spellman’s work ethic but only raised concerns about conditioning. This was left out of the screenshot, via ESPN:
In this instance, a source close to Hart said the two spoke briefly, for less than a minute, and Hart offered that Spellman had a great work ethic, but he was concerned about his fitness.
During his redshirt year, Spellman lost 55 pounds. He went on to average 10.9 points and 8 rebounds with the 2018 title-winning Villanova team.
Spellman was eventually taken with the No. 30 pick by the Atlanta Hawks.
Still, it goes to show what kind of impact this Lakers story is already having throughout the league.
Update: After speaking with Hart, Spellman would later tweet that it was a misunderstanding.
