While the Lakers are sitting at home watching the NBA Finals, a couple of baby Lakers are still participating.
In the Thunder-Pacers Finals matchup, Alex Caruso is playing for OKC and Thomas Bryant is representing Indiana. This means, regardless of the outcome, one of the former Baby Lakers will hoist the Larry O’Brien this June.
Caruso was a beloved player for the Lakers. In his four years in Los Angeles, he was one of the best defensive guards in the NBA right from the jump and that didn’t change when he left for Chicago and, eventually, Oklahoma City.
He was a key part of the Lakers’ 2020 title, starting in the closeout Game 6 against the Heat and now is playing big minutes for the Thunder as he’s primed to win his second championship.
The Lakers’ decision to allow him to leave in free agency was one of the biggest mistakes the franchise has made this decade. Even now, LeBron James continues to compliment Caruso’s game and speak about him with tremendous reverence.
Bryant was a solid backup big for the purple and gold and spent his rookie season in Los Angeles. Since then, he has bounced around the NBA, playing for the Wizards, Lakers again, Nuggets — where he also won a title — Heat and now the Pacers.
Besides being featured in the profile picture of famous blogger Harrison Faigen, Bryant is most known for his role in the photo of LeBron becoming the all-time leading scorer in NBA history.
Kidding aside, Bryant is a respectable player who has carved out a role for himself in the league. In Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, he scored 11 points, helping the Pacers close out the Knicks and earn their ticket into the NBA Finals.
Lakers fans love players like Bryant and Caruso because they were with the organization during the start of their careers and showed flashes of what they could become while the franchise was navigating the transition out of the Kobe Bryant era.
There were a lot of losses during that period of time, but watching guys like Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball, Ivica Zubac, Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, Caruso and Bryant grow and develop on a nightly basis brought joy when the final score could not.
So, while all of these players have moved on and no longer have ties to the franchise, the fan base remembers believing in them when outsiders called it the Lakers’ exceptionalism.
Now, years later, all of them are still in the league and most played big minutes during the postseason.
With Caruso and Bryant about to play against one another in the NBA Finals, the silver lining for Lakers fans is they’ll get to see one of them climb up to the top once again.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
