Nick Young seems happy Lakers traded D’Angelo Russell again

Nick Young once said of his falling out with former Lakers teammate D’Angelo Russell, “I can’t be mad forever.”

Maybe that’s still true.

But Swaggy P’s grudge against DLo appears to be going strong more than eight years after Russell secretly recorded Young discussing women other than then-fiancée Iggy Azalea in a video that somehow later became public.

Young had a strong apparent response Sunday to Russell being traded from the Lakers to the Brooklyn Nets for the second time in seven years.

“AND STAY OUT,” Young wrote on X. “Dnt bring yo ass back to LA.”

Russell was selected by the Lakers with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2015 draft. As a rookie, he became friends with Young, a veteran player in his ninth NBA season and third with the Lakers.

At one point that season, however, Russell recorded a conversation of theirs without Young’s knowledge. Months later, that video appeared on a celebrity gossip social media feed. Russell said at the time he had no idea how that happened.

“We play around and we joke and we laugh and we say things that you don’t really repeat,” Russell told reporters March 31, 2016. “That was just an incident of just ‘playing too much goes wrong.’ I take the full blame for that, recording the video. But leaking the video wasn’t me.”

Lakers Nick Young and D’Angelo Russell speak with the media before tipoff against Miami.

Young spoke briefly before Russell that day, taking no questions and telling reporters he and Russell would handle the situation in private. In August of that year, Young told the Daily News that his bond with Russell was on the mend.

“We’ll be able to work it out,” Young said. “We’ve already been working it out. It is what it is. I can’t be mad forever.”

Young has addressed the matter in his current role as a regular on the “Gil’s Arena” podcast. Asked in November why he didn’t physically confront Russell at the time, Young said then-Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and team security prevented him from coming into contact with Russell until the situation had cooled over.

Both players left the Lakers during the 2017 offseason, Young as a free agent and Russell in a trade with the Nets. Young played two more seasons, with the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets. Russell became an All-Star in his second season with the Nets, then played with the Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves before returning to the Lakers in February 2023.

Russell helped the Lakers reach the Western Conference finals that season and set the team record for most made threes in a season with 226 the following year. But he lost his starting role early this season and saw his minutes drop as well, leading to this weekend’s deal that sent Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three future second-round picks to Brooklyn for Dorian Finney-Smith and reserve guard Shake Milton.