D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

Watching the flow of Russ’s career over the past few seasons, I’ve noted a few things. He can take over games, and he’s also happy to be an initiator. He’s often engaged on defense, and he’s a massive improvement there over what he was a couple of seasons ago, or even compared to last year. Part of that is that he’s healthy. Part of it is that he does want to be the main guy on a team, and he mostly is that in Brooklyn. The team and the fans and the coach all trust him, so it's easy to be engaged.

I think it was @Weezy who noted that he shoots a lot, and he probably wouldn’t get to shoot that much on LA. Totally true. Beasley shot 19.9 times per 36. Kuzma and BI shot 16.7 and 16.6. Those are the most other than LeBron. Russ puts up more shots per 36 than LeBron at 21.9. So, no, he wouldn’t be able to shoot like that on LA. That could hurt his value, or it could make him develop his playmaking even more.

BTW, shooting that much has almost certainly accelerated his development. He’s shooting his best %s, has developed signature moves (he’s right around elite in the midrange game right now, has a great floater, and he’s good going high off the glass on layups, in addition to a lethal stepback three). Even his Free Throw Rate, which isn’t good, has picked up big time over the past month and a half. It was below .100 a couple months ago, but it’s up to .132 now. Still low, but it’s on the rise.

He has struggled recently, with Treveon Graham playing more minutes both instead of him and next to him. Graham can’t shoot – at all. That destroys the spacing that Dinwiddie (good drive penetrator) and Napier (good three-point shooter) can create. Last night, the Nets fans were screaming for Russ to stay in and Graham to be off the court. Part of this is Dinwiddie just coming back from injury, but part of it is Graham’s solid defense; Atkinson is trying to keep guys from being overextended, but he’s leaning too heavily on Graham (btw, he’s shooting 33% on FGs, 26% on threes). It’s making life hard for Russ and other shooters. Joe Harris, for instance, has been leading the NBA in three-point percentage since before the Break. Before last night, he was shooting 32% on threes over his last 8 games (dropping to a pathetic 46%!).

What does all this have to do with Russ? Russ was struggling, too. He’s massively improved, but if he doesn’t have shooters on the court, it’s easy to collapse on him. He makes better decisions now, his handle is improved, but he doesn’t have anywhere near elite athleticism, so trapping him becomes a lot easier when you don’t have to respect shooters.

But, yeah, 20-7-4 from a just 23 y/o is pretty damn good. I still think he winds up with 5 years, 80-90m. He has a game that lends itself to the long term, too. Those knees are a question mark, but he did some serious training and reshaping of his movement. He’s setting longevity marks this season: he has a career high 71 starts, career high MPG, is on pace to set a career high total minutes (needs 133), and he’s on pace to set a career high games with 81. He missed one game for rest on a B2B earlier.

BTW, here are some playmaking numbers, by season (compared to his rookie season):

Rookie: 266 assists, 196 TO
Year 2: +37 AST, -20 TO
Year 3: -17 AST, -49 TO
Year 4: +216 AST, +13 TO

 

Those moves were out of control - between the legs, the ball fake. Nice!

 

Seems like every other day the knife gets twisted more. Do your thing kid.

 

Well it’s a good thing I’ll be watching the NCAA tournament then, just like I was today. The Lakers should lose as much viewership as possible, it’s what they deserve with the product they put out.

 

Those highlights...

 

Like that Mitch gif...

 

Good read