The first time Alex Caruso did this, it was in the Bubble.
The Lakers’ 2020 NBA championship guard didn’t have pressure-packed playoff crowds to deal with. He could wreck games as a dominant defender in relative solitude.
This time around, Caruso had packed arenas watching his every move. And boy, did he put on a show.
Caruso is the rare defensive player who is absolutely electric. He gets up into ballhandlers. He evades screens magically. He knocks the basketball away out of nowhere.
He makes plenty of solid offensive contributions, too.
And with Caruso helping set the tone, the Oklahoma City Thunder are NBA champions.
This could’ve still been the Lakers, or even the Bulls.
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But first Los Angeles deemed they didn’t want to keep Caruso due to luxury tax implications. And then the Bulls decided they’d rather have Josh Giddey in a trade.
Both teams made mistakes.
Some players impact winning, while others compile stats in meaningless ways.
Caruso impacts winning as well as any bench player in the NBA.
Multiple times this series, the Thunder had Caruso start the second half after he began the game on the bench.
Clearly, Oklahoma City knows what it has in Caruso. Don’t be on them getting rid of him anytime soon. They’ve seen how that worked out for the Lakers and the Bulls, and they’d much prefer not to deal with that themselves.
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