LOS ANGELES _ You can tell D'Angelo Russell how big this is.
You can tell him of the astronomical expectations on being drafted No. 2 overall by the Los Angeles Lakers, that one of the most famous names in sports is counting on him to become a star in a city that's never gone so long without a winning season from its marquee basketball franchise. You can try tell him all that and the 20-year-old will challenge your assumption, ready before you even finish the thought.
"I don't believe that," he'll say.
There's no use in arguing something so ingrained.
"It's just a lot of history here, it's a lot of fans," Russell explains, as he enters his second NBA season. "At the end of the day, the Houston Rockets have a practice facility with a name. The Milwaukee Bucks have a practice facility with a name. At the end of the day when you step in between those lines, none of that matters."
See, Russell's father taught him he would one day be great. He taught him he could do anything he wanted, and that his family would stand by him no matter what trials he met along the way. That belief pushed him through the sometimes rocky early stages of his NBA career.
As a 6-foot-5 scorer, Russell is part of a wave of nontraditional point guards, who are no longer just little guys who can run the offense, in a league that's now dominated by the position. If he becomes what the Lakers expected when they drafted him, they'll join the league's point-guard revolution and pull themselves out of the purgatory that's led to 65 wins combined in the last three seasons.
That is pressure. But Russell doesn't see it that way. His family taught him not to believe anything was too big for him. He trusts a very small group of people, and he keeps those people close still.
