Alex Caruso says the Lakers really want to finish out their championship chase

The Los Angeles Lakers have a number of players on their roster with a wealth of playoff experience. In fact, all but two players have made the NBA Playoffs at least once in their careers: Kyle Kuzma and Alex Caruso, the latter of whom didn’t sign his first fully-guaranteed NBA contract until last summer.

Kuzma and Caruso would have made their postseason debuts on Saturday, but with the NBA on an indefinite suspension, they’re going to have to wait a little while longer. Caruso talked about how difficult its been for him to stay patient in a recent interview with Arash Markazi of the Los Angeles Times, and why he feels it’s important for the season to resume — not just for the Lakers, but for the NBA as a whole:

“It’s disappointing not being able to continue playing basketball and get ready for the playoffs and chase our goal of winning a championship,” Caruso said. “It’s crazy. Everything is so unprecedented and no one has any answers. I’ve tried my best to take it day by day, but it’s hard.

“Everyone wants to see this season through. We want to win a championship but even teams that are playing for the eight seed want to see it through because they’re trying to make the playoffs and see what can happen. It’s also just about the love of the game. We all love playing basketball so much and we want to go back out there and do what we love again.”

The good news is that the NBA season hasn’t been canceled. From all that we know, the league is determined to crown a champion for the 2019-20 season. What we don’t know is when the season will resume, and we likely won’t know for at least another few weeks.

We also don’t know what the season will look like when it does resume. Will the teams that are in the hunt for a playoff spot get to play out their season, or will the season resume with the first round of playoff games? The latter is probably more likely, but like Caruso said, no one has answers.

For now, all we can do is continue to practice social distancing with the hope that the light at the end of this seemingly endless tunnel will be a Lakers championship, and a Caruso Finals MVP. Haha, jk ... unless.

For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow this author on Twitter at @RadRivas.