D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

i'm too lazy to look it up, but i'm guessing russell takes far fewer layups/dunks than any of the elite scoring guards. given that he's going to need to be a scorer to reach his full potential, i'd say it's something of a concern. i'd like to see him get all the way to the basket more often. i think he can, but he doesn't seem to look for it.

 

So basically when Russell gets his shooting percentage up he'll have superior numbers.

 

Russell got by his man just fine and drove to the basket last year. Don't think he suddenly forgot how to do that. He's probably just getting acclimated to a new system where he's gonna be shooting a lot more from the perimeter.

 

there it is. thanks, thk.

 

Look at it this way, he won't be putting his body on the line as much, so he'll probably stay healthier in the long run.

 

And also consider, again, that the offense has been spread around instead of just going through Russell as compared to the aforementioned players who the offense is going through.

I actually like that we don't rely on one guy to have to step up in order for us to win.

 

I could see DAR having a Tony Parker role. He has the potential skillsets of guys like Harden, Lillard, and Steph, but I don't think their style of play is best served for this team. Parker was lightning fast and a savant finisher for a guy his size, but never a great jumpshooter. DAR is the opposite. Still, Parker was never a ball-dominant traditional PG like CP3 or Nash. He was always composed, ran the offense like a machine and was clutch as hell. 18/6 on close to 50% shooting with around 2TO would be great for DAR and this team, even though he could pull a Lillard/Steph/Harden and explode for 40+ on any given night.

 

Parker was deadly on 20 ft jumpers everytime i watched him. But like the comparison, I'd love Parker with a deadly 3 and D from Russell.

 

Still unimpressed with Russell thus far.

 

i didn't think russell played that badly last night. pretty good floor game, stuck his nose in for some boards again, made some really nice passes. i think it was appropriate to keep his shot total down given how the game was being played, too.

the lakers need their sfs to be bigger threats on offense than they have been.

but anyway, the problem was defense, and i don't think that was on russell, either.

 

He's averaging 15, 5, and 3. If that's unimpressive I'll take it. Even if he doesn't get to 20, 5, and 5 (although that's close to what his per 36 numbers are) the biggest thing is improvement and if he does that provided the shooting percentage goes up he's just fine.

 

I think my expectations for DAR is too high. I, now, consider DFish as his ceiling. Clutch at the end of the game and infuriating in most of it

 

Come on man. If he turns out Fish 2.0 im done with the Lakers.

 

I'm unimpressed with his FG% and TOV. I expected Russell to be our clearcut #1 option and best player this year. Perhaps your expectations were lower. I'm just telling it like it is. He's capable of much more and he's been subpar thus far, even by his own standards.

 

He had a very low effort game last night, but so did everyone else outside JC.

I think he's struggling a bit with NOT being the clear cut option with the offense going through him, which he was a bit last year and in Summer League.

Fast forward a few months, implement Luke's team oriented system, which has featured balanced scoring in pretty much all of our games. He has to relearn how to become effective in the system.

It really isn't a question of IF he can have explosive games, but if he can adjust to the system and dominate moving forward.