Former A&M standout Alex Caruso captures first NBA title

Former Texas A&M standout Alex Caruso is now an NBA Champion. Caruso and the Lakers closed out the Miami Heat on Sunday night with an emphatic 106-93 victory. Caruso finished with four points, five assist and three rebounds in the clinching game. 

After multiple years of uncertainty, Caruso has developed into a key role player for the NBA Champions and actually made his first playoff start in Game 6. The move paid off as Caruso made a huge impact on the defensive end of the floor and had a +26 differential in the first half. 

In 20 games so far during these playoffs, Caruso has averaged 6.7 points per game, 2.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists while averaging 23.9 minutes per game entering Friday.

It’s been a rollercoaster year for the Lakers, who won their first NBA Championship since the 2009-10 season. This season has also not been easy by any stretch of the imagination as the franchise coped with the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and dealt with an over four-month delay in the middle of the season due to the Coronavirus pandemic before restarting in the NBA bubble.

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Despite all this, the Lakers have been defined by strong chemistry all season, in fact Caruso told 247Sports earlier this year he would have to go all the way back to high school to find a team that had similar chemistry.

“Our team has had great chemistry all year,” Caruso said in a NBA Twitter video ahead of Game 5 of the NBA Finals. “A full calendar year ago we started this journey and togetherness is one of the things that we talk about before every game and I think we’ve done that. We’ve grown to know each other and to love hanging out with each other even outside of basketball and I think that has made us even closer while we’re on the court, it’s just a joy to be around this team.”

Caruso has drawn praise from NBA stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis all season long, but he has also developed a special relationship with the Lakers fans. Speaking during a Social Distancing Series with 247Sports earlier this summer, Caruso said it’s been kind of the perfect storm with his story coinciding with the Lakers resurgence.

“It was interesting, just me being on a two-way the last couple of years, the team wasn’t playing great in stretches and anytime I came up I usually played with great energy and I usually performed decently well so I think they just kind of latched onto that in a time of missing success for Lakers basketball,” Caruso said. “Then it blossomed into me being a rotation player on the first team in the West that’s title-chasing and bringing the Lakers back to prominence, so I think it was just the perfect storm, step-by-step we’ve just tightened our bond, me and the fans.”