D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

JR, JC, Houston first would be a great deal for LA.

 

His ability to get to the rim and the foul line is going to be important for his growth offensively.

How did he look defensively?

 

So irritating that he should have had 3 more assists AT LEAST. - Zu Missed And-1 Dunk, Randle And-1 missed dunk, Tarik missed lay-up (at least he dunked it later in the game for a Russell assist).

Great game even though his shot left him in the 4th quarter.

 

What you like about a game like this is he and Clarkson continuing to improve, but not just their own statistics. One problem I've had with D'Angelo (and all our kids) is that their stats only mean so much when the team isn't winning. Last week every Laker set a record for career high points and we won one game so who cares? It's these types of games where we stay competitive and they give us impressive numbers that really catch my eye.

If D'Angelo could capture this game and make it a habit, I'm far more comfortable moving forward with him as one of our lead guards. I also like it because Clarkson is doing enough to show me that everything we suspected is true and if we give D'Angelo a second creator next to him, he's going to excel. Of course I still don't understand why we're only doing this with 10 games left, but whatever.

 

Oh I agree and I never worried about the stats Russell has been putting up. Last night was so enjoyable to watch because I could see Russell actually controlling the game with his mind and thinking out coverages and where he wanted his guys to be. The 3rd quarter alone was a beautiful site and Russell was a huge part of that.

He is really starting to find his way and as Luke brought up in the post game presser, Russell gains this confidence when he starts to hit his shots. But he started the game last night finding others and then slowly started to find his own game. One of the best game of knowing when to find/get his shot and look for others. Even despite the turnovers he had in the 4th quarter trying to probe and look for something or a teammate.

 

Yeah they had a sample size they were comfortable with that said the two of them were atrocious defensively giving up some 20 points more than they scored.

Still though, you've got to figure out whether the two work or not. The sample size wasn't large enough in my estimation and if we're willing to keep starting Julius, why are we not willing to give Clarkson a shot? I don't get it. It didn't make sense for it to take this long.

 

This is why I suggested the Julius Randle for Marcus Smart trade in another thread. Boston needs some help in the bigs department. Smart could play next to Russell and do some of the lifting on carrying the ball up on offense and he could be our defensive guard. Obviously we lose a lot of offense between Clarkson and Smart, but if we don't keep the pick and Indy doesn't want Randle in a PG13 trade, flipping him for Smart seems like a solid move for both teams.

 

I admit that he plays with as much athleticism as Harden, but when I saw Harden's combine numbers, I was shocked. He posted crazy numbers.