Patrick Beverley blasts Lakers fans for hurting players’ values: ‘They talk so bad about their players’

Reggie Hildred-USA TODAY Sports

Patrick Beverley got a brief taste of what it’s like to play for the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2022-23 regular season. He appeared in 45 games with the storied franchise and averaged 6.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 0.9 steals per game before he was dealt to the Orlando Magic prior to the 2023 trade deadline.

He also played for the Lakers when one of the team’s stars — Russell Westbrook — was underperforming and getting plenty of flak from supporters of the squad. Westbrook didn’t prove to be a hand-in-glove fit alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and he also didn’t even spend the entire 2022-23 campaign in Los Angeles, as he was traded to the Utah Jazz midseason.

Beverley said that Lakers fans are so critical of the team’s players to the point that they lower the values of said players.

“They talk so bad about their players that they actually decrease their value,” Beverley said. “So now, when trade comes…ain’t nobody just giving you s—.”

Beverley continued.

“No one’s trying to help the Los Angeles Lakers,” he said. “… We know you guys want this guy — he’s a second-rounder for every other team — but to the Lakers, he’s two first rounds. F— it. … But when you have a fan base that — a guy shoots bad — everyone goes on Twitter. Everybody sees everything. I don’t give a f— what type of player you is. Everyone goes on Twitter. And they crush guys. They decrease their value.”

The former NBA player was speaking in the context of the trade that sent D’Angelo Russell from the Lakers to the Brooklyn Nets several days ago. Russell looked in a funk with Los Angeles this season, and fans even took to X to celebrate the guard’s departure.

But Russell balled out in the first game of his second stint with the Nets, which came against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 1. He didn’t even start for Brooklyn, yet he scored the second-most points of any Net with 22 while shooting 9-of-13 from the field and 2-of-6 from 3-point range.

Lakers fans won’t have to wait much longer to figure out how Russell will fare in his second game back with the Nets when Brooklyn plays the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night. If he continues to light up the scoring column for the Nets in the coming games, maybe folks will begin to question whether or not the Lakers made the right decision by moving on from Russell.

The biggest name the Lakers acquired in the Russell trade — Dorian Finney-Smith — underperformed in his team debut against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 31. He totaled just two points on 1-of-4 shooting from the floor to go along with two rebounds and two assists.