Alex Caruso’s meteoric rise from undrafted free agent, to a leader on the G League’s South Bay Lakers, to cracking the Los Angeles Lakers’ rotation, to becoming a valuable contributor on a LeBron James title team endeared him to fans in Southern California and across the country.
Caruso’s relentless, defense-first play style and phenomenal on-court fit with James made losing him to the Chicago Bulls in free agency last summer a bitter pill to swallow for Lakers fans, and the reported circumstances around his departure didn’t exactly ease the pain, either.
But while Lakers executives may not have valued Caruso enough to pay him themselves, they were also using him as an example to sell to other undrafted free agents — players like Austin Reaves — about what their franchise could do for them in terms of fit and exposure, according to Bill Oram of The Athletic:
[South Bay Lakers president Joey] Buss and other Lakers and South Bay executives sold [Austin Reaves] on their developmental program.