your premise is that he catches too much crap. i disagree. players whose consistency in effort are questioned deserve this. russell, too. i've been very troubled by our young players' inability to stay motivated. and it's quite clear now that this wasn't just byron.
I think players that get bashed on nights off because they have pneumonia should probably not get bashed for that. I don't care which player. And I agree completely that the kids are the problem (or most of the problem) and it's clear as day. That doesn't mean Byron was the right coach or even a good one, but kids that can't get motivated to win are kids that I'm not particularly satisfied with. Doesn't mean I'm going to go after them for things they can't control. I've been just as critical of Julius as any other kid, even if I'm more patient with his mistakes.
I don't think anybody bashes Randle for being sick. Mostly he gets bashed because he has been pretty useless the past 2 weeks and gets yanked regularly from the lineup in the second halfs for a reason. The thing is he isn't even bad for a #7 pick. But he wasn't supposed to be a number 7 just like Embiid wasn't supposed to be a #3 pick. Expectations are high for Randle and he hasn't lived up to them. Were the expectations too high? in the aftermath, yes.
Lakers have the greatest Hall of Fame lineups of all time. It's pretty easy for anybody to fall short of fan expectations in LA
i think most jokes were about not noticing if he were sick or not because he's invisible every other game anyway. which isn't about being sick at all. hell, i wish someone would say he's had mono all year. that might explain some things! and byron is obviously a terrible coach. but we need to put to rest the idea that it was him affecting the mentality of the young players. their mentality was already...affected. and my beef isn't with randle performing relative to whatever my expectations were. it's with his inconsistent effort and focus. i'll live with him never being a shooter or a great finisher due to some physical limitations, but it's high time he starts paying attention when he doesn't have the ball. that's fixable. or it should be.
I'm not arguing either of your second points. Literally my only point when we started this was that it's silly to bash a kid who isn't on the floor. He's not on the floor to defend himself. Seemed unnecessary. I think it's evident pretty clearly that Laker fans generally don't like Randle. The kid had pneumonia and the concern level around here was somewhere between "none" and "trade him". I have a soft spot for him, that much is clear, but I still hold the same criticisms as you do. I just find it sad that his thread is full of such criticisms (even on good nights he's had mind you) and other kids with literally the same criticisms haven't had the same negative reactions from the majority of the fan base. D'Angelo clearly has the same issues if not worse, but he has a solid following willing to defend him. Clarkson has clearly worse mental issues this year and most fans either accept it or don't care. Ingram, who I love as a prospect, can't hit the broad side of a barn but nobody is really bashing the kid for that. It seems I am one of few Randle defenders on the site so I do find it strange that he catches most of the ire. KB24 must be right: everyone expected more of him somehow and somehow he's not living up to expectations that shouldn't have existed. All in all, I still believe of the three kids we've had more than 3 months Randle has shown the most. If his effort level is questionable (it is), what does that make the rest of the kids?
I'm not sure we expected more of him. Rather, HE set the bar pretty high. In his first full year of actual play, he was basically a double double machine. He then worked hard all summer, improved his handle, improved his shot, and then got a couple of triple doubles. If anything, fans are comparing recent efforts compared to what we KNOW he can do. So you see, It's actually Julius Randle's fault. Just get a triple double every week, set those aggressive screens, and terrorize the post on offense and defense. None of the 4 pt, 2 rebound performances. When we know you are capable of dominating, that crap will not fly with fans. Not asking much, right?
I personally think Randle catches the least heat out of all 3, if you go into the Russell thread there is a load more heat for him e.g. Turnovers, running his mouth, soft, injury prone etc. Not that they aren't justified mind you. But inconsistent play will always draw criticism, which all of our youngsters suffer from, except Clarkson who seems to of regressed.
I think Clarkson has really picked it up lately. But a horrible stretch he had, yikes. I think he's our future Lou, so I'm glad he's getting see how Lou operates up close. Not everyone can fill the role of sparkplug off the bench.
Inconsistency is 90% a mental thing. I think Randle being a double double machine last year, nobody expected him to be a worse rebounder. Everybody expected his scoring to improve and we also expected him to play better than awful defense. Randle himself has said many times he feels like he is the best player of that draft and how hard he has worked etc. If you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Thats also the main reason Russell is being bashed or disliked by some. He sets the bar for himself sky high and fails to live up to it. I don't remember how many times Russell during he summer said how hard he has worked and how he can't wait to show his growth. Then he had a pretty good and dominant summer league too. But now looking at his numbers...meh...not really better than his rookie year and less efficient. Last year was easy to bash Byron for everything that went wrong. But it wasn't Byron who hindered the young guys from achieving their lofty potentials. Its themselves not committing to defense and not bringing the fight every night.
I do not support giving Byron Scott a pass of any kind. He's the worst coach in the HISTORY OF THE NBA that coached more than 500 games. Sure, we could blame the kids, but it doesn't excuse the rest of his career. The only Years with a winning record were with a HOF point guard. He wore out his welcome everywhere he went. He should never coach at any level again. /end rant
I think there's a consistent back and forth between people who don't like Russell and people who do. I don't think there's much consistency in this thread by comparison of people who go back and forth for Randle. He has more detractors than supporters, but he's not as polarizing. And yes I'm sick of our youngsters' inconsistency. It's one thing to lack talent, it's another to lack heart. I am starting to worry that this losing will poison these kids if it hasn't already. At what point does losing become acceptable?
Does anyone know how bad the pneumonia is? I had it once in both lungs and the doctor said if I hadn't gone in when I did (I though I just had the flu) I probably would have died. Pneumonia is some serious s***.
He's cleared to play again already so it couldn't have been as bad as that. Still the Lakers are holding him out for now until they feel like they've lost a few more games, I mean, until he is comfortable playing again.
It is a serious ailment if your body can't recover on its own. My dad had a serious stroke when I was 10. After 2-3 years of not really recovering much at all from the stroke, he eventually passed away and the cause of death was pneumonia. Now a regular healthy person who gets pneumonia they most certainly will and should be able to fight it off, but its when you already have a debilitating disease or problem it can be dangerous.
I thought he started okay with good energy, but was extremely rusty. He clearly got smacked around pretty good by that pneumonia bout.
more talented (russell and ingram), more focused (ingram), more consistent in terms of effort (clarkson and ingram). and i think russell catches PLENTY of crap from fans. ingram's got rookie immunity. his time will come; when he's not kevin durant next october.
So Russell's one redeeming quality above Randle is his talent level. That makes his lack of effort even more egregious considering he's capable of being so much more. He does. I didn't say he didn't. I said Russell has just as many fans as he does detractors, at least on this site. While Randle has a smaller handful of fans and the same amount (if not more) detractors which I find strange. Ingram better start hitting more than 40% next year, let alone 45-50%, if he wants to keep fans off of him. I think that's a fair criticism though. I actually think fans under appreciate the full gambit of skills the kid has shown. If not fans, then certainly the national media. It'd be easy to look at his stats and think he's a bum, but he's got more talent than anybody should have expected.
