After playing 33 games with the Warriors, they traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a multiplayer swap that brought Andrew Wiggins to Golden State. After playing parts of four seasons with the Timberwolves, they shipped him to the Lakers as part of a three-team, multiplayer trade.

The Lakers re-acquired Russell in order to rid themselves of Russell Westbrook, who had become an on-court and off-court distraction for a team that failed to live up to its promise in ways great and small and hoped to push the reset button on 2022-23. It was hoped Russell would provide stability.

Imagine it.

Well-traveled guard with a past added to a team seeking a fresh start.

Funny thing. It’s worked out well for the Lakers, who have a 2-1 lead in their second-round playoff series against the Warriors going into Game 4 tonight at Crypto.com Arena. Russell is averaging 16.7 points, 3.2 rebounds and 6 assists in 30.7 minutes in nine playoff games this spring.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what we had going on,” Russell said of his first thoughts after rejoining the Lakers on Feb. 9. “I was just kind of going with the flow. I mean, I told Rob (Pelinka, Lakers general manager,) right away that I didn’t know what our team was going to look like. He kind of laughed. And then we continued to make a few trading pieces and I was like, OK, our team is kind of filling out.

“We’ve got some bodies here that get us over the hump.”

Was it really that simple? Did the Lakers need only to add a more polished, more mature Russell to reach the playoffs and come within one victory Monday of putting a stranglehold on their series with the defending NBA champions? It took some time, but it appears Russell has found a home.

Or, at the very least, a home for as long as these playoffs continue.

Russell can become a free agent at season’s end.

For now, he seems content to live in the moment.

“It’s good just knowing I’m prepared for whatever’s next, you know?” he said. “I feel like I was prepared for this situation, prepared for this opportunity now. Prepared myself mentally, physically to have success under these circumstances, too. Obviously getting traded and things like that, you gotta readjust your focus. Going through what I’ve been through in my short time as a pro has prepared me for almost everything, so just being prepared, getting my mentality shifted to the right place and then attacking it from there. I’ve had some success, so I might not change that up.”

Russell has found an enhanced role as a third option beyond Lakers stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, setting them up for baskets with his playmaking ability. He hasn’t limited his game, however, as evidenced by scoring the Lakers’ first 11 points in their Game 3 victory Saturday.

The Lakers needed an early spark and Russell provided it.

“I enjoyed coaching him,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who coached Russell during his short stint with Golden State in 2019-20, when star guards Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were injured.

“He’s a great guy. He’s a really high IQ player. You can see that in this series — how smart he is, how skilled he is.”

By the end of Game 3, Russell had scored 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting as the Lakers routed the Warriors, 127-97. It was his second-best scoring and shooting game of these playoffs, after he had a playoff career-high 31 points on 12-for-17 shooting in Game 6 against the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round.

“He’s just a really good natural basketball player,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said of Russell, who turned 27 on Feb. 23. “You put him in a situation, he’s going to figure it out. Sky’s the limit on his IQ, and he’s out there with other high IQ ballplayers. … I think he’s done an amazing job, you know, embracing and internalizing a lot of things we threw at him on both sides of the ball.”