Look, playing for the Lakers comes with multiple levels of added scrutiny that don’t exist with other franchises. So say, in a completely hypothetical example, when a player with known chemistry issues who has been shopped the entirety of the offseason on the trade market has a couple of moments caught on camera that raise an eyebrow, it’s not simply brushed away.
Being a Laker includes a constant state of criticism that almost certainly isn’t necessarily fair, even if it’s expected. The tradeoff, or at least as it used to be, was competitive basketball and increased chances at titles, though the team is just two years removed from its most recent NBA championship.