I kinda feel like our fan base is too hard on Julius and too easy on D'Angelo. Both had bad games but Russ sucked it up worse imo. At least Julius was rebounding and made half his shots. Russ simply disappeared. Julius can be replaced by Nance so it's ok if it takes another year or two for him to develop. Russ has a bigger role/responsibilty than Julius on this team, and he needs to step it up.
He struggled. I thought he looked okay defensively (3 steals good rotations), but the offense looked clunky when he was in there with the starters. Either way, just a very forgettable game from a fans standpoint; but from a coaches standpoint, this is one where you can break down the film and start pointing out things he could do better.
On another note, I'm not feeling Randle in the starting lineup right now. I want to experiment with Nance at the 4 sometime this preseason. I also want to see Deng at the 4. A. Brown was another pleasant surprise, but I need consistency; nevertheless, if he does keep shooting like that, I'd like to experiment with him in various lineups.
Oh sure..... now they come trickling back in ...... where were you guys during the dog days of the off season?
Meanwhile, Boron is still trying to get the team to run suicides and run the team to the ground again.
All of this is correct, but I won't like I know how players are really doing till after all the preseason games are played.
A day after the game, I realized what a weird game it was last night. It was almost as if Luke turned on something and the team started playing sound ball. How are you down 20 and then win comfortably even before the half way mark in the 4th? Good weird but just weird.
Boom Boom went legend and our reserves seemed a lot better than their reserves, but yeah you are right .... a tale of two halves. I liked the no quit in our guys and they started knocking down 3s and Js as well. A. Brown, Nance, Calderon, Clarkson. Plus our defense, though rough, already looked advanced compared to last year. All that together was great.
If anyone is easier on Russ I think it's because his role is so much harder. Russ is learning to run an offense/team, he's younger than Randle, and his body is so much less nba ready. Randle has a man body already, he's playing the same position he did in college and I assume high school, he's being asked to score, rebound and give max effort, same as the other bigs, not a ton to ask. With Russ I see growing pains, I see struggles to learn the PG position because it's difficult, where with Randle I see lack of all out effort. I'm not giving Russ a pass, he needs to knock off the careless turnovers, but I still see tons of potential in him. With Randle, I'm losing faith a little each time I see him play and he doesn't show additions to his game and plays with the same lack of effort on d and lack of awareness in so many other areas. Nance has a much better feel for the game than him, he's got to start figuring out what kind of player he's going to be, what his skill set is going to be, it's time already. Scorer, rebounder, defender, which? As this season goes on, if I don't see the same improvements from Russ I will start to ask the same questions. If he shows that he is a turnover machine and lacks the PG court vision he supposedly had still deep into this season, I will question if he's a PG, or if he will need to be moved to scoring guard. But after one preseason game I'm not gonna get on him too hard, he started the game with an awful lineup, and we saw in summer league after a bad game 1 he bounced back well.
Steve Kerr effect. Remember how Kerr was non existent with the magic, etc early in his career? Then Phil Jackson got into his head and he was making game winners in the finals. Walton has that kind of effect.
I get your point. So basically you think Russell's problem is fixed easier? I'm not sure if that is true. It's no secret that while Julius is physically gifted, Russell's basketball IQ is way more advanced. As we witnessed last year, Julius takes a bit more time to get comfortable and understand positioning/concepts in a new system. The game does not come to him as naturally as some of these other players, so I understand why he struggles. I don't think it's about effort. It seems to me like he doesn't know where/when to exert his energy. He's not the type of player you can throw into a pickup game and expect monster numbers. So I'm not too worried about him. He'll have some mental lapses here and there but he'll snap out eventually. As for Russell, the sloppiness and carelessness stems from the lack of focus that was apparent from last year. He just wasn't tuned into the game. So the way I see it, Julius' problem is short-term, while Russell's problem in long-term. And when Russell has a bad game, it's hurts us more because we depend on him a lot more.
I can't help but smile at how far he has come since posting that bad tweet about Kobe while in high school or first year of college regarding his court case. Apologizing when he was drafting saying he's grown up a ton, to now being one of the most down to earth guys on our team and a fan favorite. Proud of you Larry and may we have many more exciting and successful years together!
Nance is the type of Laker who is an easy fan favorite and brings that x-factor. Reminds me of Eddie Jones, Trevor Ariza, and guys like that.
