Alex Caruso had the perfect response for a troll who told him to stick to sports

Alex Caruso and every other member of the Los Angeles Lakers have made their voices heard on social media during the worldwide protests over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd.

One of the latest instances of Caruso specifically speaking out came on Monday, when he sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for the way the White House had peaceful protesters tear-gassed so that the could walk across the street or a photo opportunity:

One internet troll took exception to that, and told Caruso to “just dribble.” Caruso had an excellent response to that troll, and anyone else who would try to silence him:

Thinking of that response just seven minutes after the reply was sent is exactly the kind of excellent knack for improvisational timing that’s made Caruso so successful playing off the ball, so it does seem that tendency towards passing on dribbling has been put to good use here.

But jokes aside, Caruso is absolutely in the right to use his platform to give voice to issues that are important to him, just like any of us do. There has long been this idea — perhaps most famously on display when Fox News host and all-around awful person Laura Ingraham told Caruso’s now-Lakers teammate LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” in 2018, leading to him driving to the proverbial basket and dunking on her — that athletes should “stick to sports,” when we don’t ask that of literally any other profession in America.

Think about it: basically wherever you work, no one on your Facebook feed is going to tell you to stick to that if you post something they don’t like. They may disagree with you, but they’re likely not going to use your job to tell you that you shouldn’t be allowed to share your political views. We can all talk about things that aren’t related to our professions. No one tells Laura Ingraham to stick to dog whistling when she talks about sports.

Caruso and other athletes have just as much right to voice their opinions on our politicians and their actions as any of the rest of us. Thankfully he and the rest of the Lakers seem to understand that, and are using them to share their thoughts about things that are important to them. Just like the rest of us, none of them are required to, but in a time when it’s as important as ever for people to be politically engaged, kudos to him and the rest of the team for setting an example.

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