Montrezl Harrell is settling into a nice role with the Los Angeles Lakers, but his former team is still very much on his mind.
Speaking with reporters Monday, the Lakers big man discussed the positive changes that his new squad has presented for him.
“It’s really just being able to just play my game and just not being kind of told and sit on, ‘You always got to be this, this or this,’” said Harrell, per Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register. “It’s kind of been the system I’ve kind of been playing in for a while. It’s got to be threes, layups or let’s get free throws. But that’s not like that over here.
“They play to the style of everybody’s game,” the reigning Sixth Man of the Year added. “We’re not looking at anybody that, ‘You have to do this, you got to do that,’ man. We play basketball over here. It’s free-flowing game.”
Harrell, 26, is averaging 12.9 points in 25.0 minutes per contest in his first seven games as a Laker. While those are both lower numbers than what he put up last season with the Clippers, he is also shooting more efficiently from the field now.
The comments could also be a shot at the Houston Rockets, the analytics-heavy team where Harrell spent the first two seasons of his NBA career. But considering what Harrell has said about the Clippers since their split, they seem to be the main target of Harrell’s ire here.
