Patrick Beverley was a consummate professional throughout his half season-long stretch with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Since being dealt at the NBA Trade Deadline, though – the 34-year-old has made it clear that he does have some gripes about his time in L.A.
During a recent appearance on his podcast, Beverley expounded on what the problem was.
Everything wasn’t sunshine and rainbows in LA pic.twitter.com/FYs965EjBO
— Pat Bev Pod (@PatBevPod) March 22, 2023
“Yeah, we should do this on defense… ‘Nah we cool, we cool… Nah we gotta rotate’… Bron what you mean we gotta rotate, you ain’t even playing…
“They don’t listen to me…. You gotta go through the first-year coach, the LeBron, the AD, the Russ, then it get to me. You don’t hear my sh*t the way you should hear my sh*t,” he continued.
“Due to circumstances, whoever on the team, your voice isn’t heard, what you saying doesn’t echo. Because we had a nice f**king team in LA.”
And Beverley’s comments were not just a one-off thing. This weekend, after his Chicago Bulls defeated the Lakers on Sunday, Beverley once again reiterated that he felt like his old team misused him.
“Yeah. If I’m a spoon, Billy [Donovan] is using me as a spoon,” Beverley told reporters. “The Lakers, you know, I was a spoon, and they used me as a fork.”
As was made clear when he offered his thoughts on how Russell Westbrook’s time with the Lakers ended, there isn’t much romanticism in how Beverley regards the purple and gold these days.
Brittany is celebrating the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win more than Patrick at this point. https://t.co/ZOQFDCjfUq
— Game 7 (@game7__) March 27, 2023
Whether Beverley’s gripes are justified or not is debatable.
One way or another, though – the remainder of the season will tell us how strong of a case Beverley has as far as his issues with L.A.
If he thrives with the Bulls, then clearly the Lakers were the problem. If Beverley keeps largely being the player he was in Los Angeles, then clearly he was the issue all along.
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Jennifer Withers Hoey is a former Business Development Manager who transitioned to writing about sports. With valuable connections all over the West Coast, she has used those contacts to break some of the most interesting stories pertaining to the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Ducks, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Seattle Supersonics (RIP), and more.
