UNC Basketball: Wayne Ellington wants all the smoke

Former UNC basketball standout Wayne Ellington didn’t mince words on social media following a cheap shot in Sunday night’s game.

Wayne Ellington wasn’t afforded many opportunities this season, despite the fact that his Los Angeles Lakers were one of the most disappointing and discombobulated teams in the entire NBA.

Ellington logged less than 19 minutes per game for the 33-win Lakers, a squad that struggled with shooting the ball as much as it did with anything else and could have seemingly benefitted more from a career 38.2 percent three-point marksman.

He had his best game of the 2021-22 campaign in Sunday night’s regular-season finale against the Denver Nuggets when he scored 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor and 4-of-8 beyond the arc in the Lakers’ 146-141 victory. And regardless of how well Ellington fared in the box score, it was almost a footnote to the scrum that he got into with Denver’s Facundo Campazzo.

With the Lakers leading by one point at the 7:24 mark of the second quarter, Campazzo inexplicably ran full-speed with outstretched arms into the back of a defenseless Ellington, which forced the former Tar Heel sharpshooter to the ground as his head hit the back of Wenyen Gabriel’s lower leg.

Fortunately, Ellington rose from the court and played the remainder of the game with nothing more than the shock of being accosted for absolutely no reason by Campazzo, a second-year player from Argentina. Ellington apparently didn’t feel like a simple ejection from the game was a punishment that fit the crime because he made clear on social media following the incident that Campazzo has more coming to him in the near future.

“When I see you I’m putting my hands on you,” Ellington said pointedly in a tweet that left very little doubt about his intentions the next time the two players meet.

It took until game 82 of the season for us to see the best of Wayne Ellington on and off the court, but we sure did hit the daily double on Sunday. Now, all that’s left to find out is what happens when Ellington and Campazzo share the court next season, and I for one can’t wait.

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