D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

Courtesy LG: Keepitrealorelse

 

He's going to the rim a little bit more so that's encouraging. But he really does look tentative out there.

 

Man Hibbert's hands are so loose. He needs to put something adhesive on them before the games. D'angelo evolving...slowly. But at least it's happening.

 

Apparently, James Worthy criticized Russell after this game.

 

^I heard that. James calling you out isn't good, he likes to stay positive.

I think D'Angelo may be a bit in over his head. I mean this kid is essentially one year removed from high school ball. The NBA is no joke and he's adjusting to it. Guys like Mudiay might adjust a little easier because they have more NBA-ready bodies but D'Angelo doesn't, and playing at this level is probably harder for him. It's going to take some time.

Maybe the lack of effort can be partially attributed to being overwhelmed. That doesn't excuse not running back on D. Regardless I'm not ready to believe he has poor character and hopefully what we think is poor effort is just him painfully adjusting to the League.

 

We drafted a project. We'll have to wait 3 years more or less.

 

It's lucky Kareem doesn't talk, otherwise the entire Showtime would be ruined for me. I like each of them less and less every time they open their mouths.

Shut up, James. Or dish equally to your moron buddy as well.

 

I agree that Russell, at least to my eye, does not appear to "hustle" like say, nance. he doesn't have a lot of obvious "fire" out there. maybe that's just his demeanor--tim Duncan often looks disengaged, but I assure you, he is a competitor.

 

Not everyone has to be KG about it... Duncan works for me

 

Eh...just because he's not playing with "fire" like say Demarcus Cousins, doesn't mean Dlo doesn't care. I don't really need to see fire, just effective play. Ahem, Kawhi Leonard says hello.

I'm fully ready to believe that any apathy or bad habits we see out of Dlo are a result of coaching rather than a primadonna complex.

 

As a Russell supporter, there is no excise for his lackadaisical effort for the better part of 3 quarters. None.

Why? It's simple. In the game against Orlando, he played with a sense of urgency and purpose out there from the outset . He set the tone.

Yesterday? He waited until the 4th quarter when the game was already decided. He needs to be more assertive from the beginning. Period.

 

we didnt draft Porzingis because we thought he was a project...so we turned around and drafted a project...good job FO

 

From what i read we were had Russ and Kristaps on the board. I would do the same thing FO did 10 times out of 10. Russ is a project as well, but at least he'll stay healthy. Kristaps looks like an injury waiting to happen...
Boron would play him at the SG or SF anyways

 

i think they knew russell was a project. he's 19. porzingis has already played a couple years against men. and i'm not sure he's really setting the world on fire.

towns is setting the world on fire. okafor is doing what i expected. after them, i'm not sure russell is really underperforming relative to other draft picks. he's not getting the same opportunities as some (porzingis, mudiay come to mind) and he's playing in a system ill-suited to his talents.

i'd like to see him play with more confidence, which was supposed to be a selling point at draft time, iirc. i have yet to see it except in flashes during blowouts. i'm sure we can try to pin some of that on byron, too, but we can't just default to that for everything. gotta take ownership at some point.

 

DLo seems real disengaged at times and is pretty disheartening. He gets zero lift on his jumpshots and is real tentative to drive to the basket. He's done it more the past few games, but he seems to settle for a jumper coming off a screen. We saw last night vs the Suns that he can get to the basket and he does have some quickness to him.

 

The talent and skill set is there. It's all about his mindset. He turned it on at the end of the game in garbage time. Why he can't do that the entire game well that's gotta change. We know Byron sucks, but as a player you have to make the most of those minutes. It kind of reminds me of Bynum. Obviously different position, but there were times when you wondered what the hell he was doing out there and then all of a sudden he decided to play and he looked like the most unstoppable big man in basketball.

 

The one positive for me is as frustrating as it is seeing him lolly gagging out there at times his lack of consistency isn't because he's not good enough. He's not out there getting blown by constantly, he's not making a bunch of silly turnovers and being overwhelmed by stingy defenders at the PG position, it's not him not being able to get by a man, not be able to shoot, it's all about him being engaged or not.

We've seen the flashes of brilliance. Some of his passes just take you back to Magic Johnson because that's the last time we've seen a guy at PG make some of those kinds of reads and amazing decisions. You've seen Russell be able to attack on screen and roll. He's shown he can turn the corner. He's shown he can knock down the mid range jumper. He's shown he can attack off the dribble. Some good attacks in transition. He's shown that he can use his size and length to his advantage defensively.

 

He plays tentative because he doesn't know exactly what is expected of him. Garbage time he just says heck with it and plays. If he knew the coach had confidence in him and he would not get pulled so quickly we would see that more often. Bad coaching can completely change how a player plays. You don't get worse coaching than this.