D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

I'm still Team D'Angelo on this. I understand the frustration from the team, it was dumb. I was pretty dumb too at 20. And I get the "snitch" culture, though I myself don't prescribe to it, and how the optics look bad when it comes to other players (FAs) looking at LA.

But ultimately where I come down on this is that if all things were equal, but the video was of Nick Young dancing and singing to Cher, nobody would have a problem with D putting it out. The problem lies with Nick openly discussing cheating on his fiancé. If he's willing to tell ANYONE something like that, it was bound to come out. D just beat TMZ by a few weeks/months.

I sincerely hope D learns from this and it makes him wiser and more mature, because when it comes to strictly the basketball court, chances are our path back to the top runs through D'Angelo and not Swaggy or Clarkson, Bass, Huertas or maybe even Julius.

I don't think that trading everyone is the right move. I also don't think this is anything so severe that a public mea culpa couldn't fix.

 

Russell won't be traded.

 

... he'll just play one on 5 from now on .

 

I see alot of fun Popovich-ian DNP designations in his future.

DNP-RAT

 

With respect to the "everyone is up for trade" group - in my case it depends on the trade possibilities. I gues none of our players is really untouchable to anyone on this board. It's all about who we can get and I would be willing to shop Russ or Julius, and to a lesser extent Clarkson, only for a very good/star player. From this perspective, I'm not against everyone being up for trade per se. However, I'm totally against shopping everybody actively and trying to clean house in terms of our young core. Not saying that's what you suggested but this seems to be what some of us have in mind nowadays.

If we seem desperate to get rid of those guys and considering the last events, their trade value may actuall not be that high at the moment. Plus I still don't feel like we have given them all a fair chance to show us what they can become. It seems to me that if Russ gets his head straight and is surrounded with the right kind of people, and all of our young guns put in the necessary work in the off season (which I expect tchem to do based on how they worked the last summer) - we may already have 2 very good to great starters and 2 potentialy great role players for the future, on cheap contracts. I won't throw that away "just" because of all that went wrong this season, even thogh it has been extremely disappointing and frustrating.

By the way - I am pretty confident that outside of the pathetic parody of a coach we have, the tanking that has been going on has also had a very negative impact on our (especially youngest) players. This has been my fear all along - this franchise has created a losing mentality and it has to be hard on the players. If we get as frustrated as we do, can you imagine what the players are going through? How can you concentrate on BB and give your best everyday if you're in the middle of this s**t? We have basically become the freaking 76ers.

 

^ to add to what Real said - it is absolutely crucial for your leader to have the respect and trust of his teammates. Most of us expect or at least have expected Russ to be one of the leaders going forward. This is the most concerning angle to this story to me at least

 

when Kobe went through his issues in Colorado, he threw Shaq under the bus. people got over it and now he's a legend. hopefully Russ can learn from this and in a couple years this will be completely forgotten. it was stupid and immature, but I'm not going to lie, the little bit about Lou getting up and walking away when Russ sat next to him sounds like high school. I'm not all too surprised by the immaturity from DA, but I expect the vets to act like grown men about it and address it rather than the passive-aggressive garbage.

 

Come on guys, team chemistry was one thing we had going for us and that's down the drain.

If Kobe didn't have one foot out the door, I'd think he be the one to help fix the issue but there needs to be a team meeting or something. Maybe this whole situation opens the eyes of the FO, we need a better coach (leader) and solid veteran players that will keep the young guys in check. (What's Battier doing these days? Can he still ball?)

The season can't end fast enough and now the summer just got really interesting.

 

No one is untouchable on this team. I think the situation can be salvaged and people's memories are short these days. But if the right offer came along, there are definitely some guys I would be okay trading Russell for.

That said, I wouldn't be in any hurry to trade him. A real apology goes a long way and Nick's days on this team were numbered anyway.

 

Julius is still untouchable to me. Everyone else, sayonara.

 

Probably not but that wouldn't stop me from listening to trade proposals involving him, and it's not because of this one isolated incident. However, this type of behavior he is showing is what happens when you build w/kids where there is a vacuum in leadership. Also, the before this incident even happened the ESPN piece said, 'there was already trust issues on the team.' When you're a 15 win squad, everybody is available, IMO.

 

there is no way the FO would even consider trading russell

he's 20 years old, this is bad but it's stuff like this that'll make him learn and mature faster. if this wasn't kobe's last season, he'd probably be the one to have a talk with russ but he's just doing his own thing at this point. this team lacks that vet who would be able to act as the voice between russ and the locker room. metta's batsh** crazy and the only other guy would be lou but i think the chemistry on this team is virtually nonexistent. no one cares anymore