D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

DLo\Reaves backcourt is just too weak defensively. I would keep Reaves and try and do a S&T with DLo.

 

Translation: leaving and picking his destination

 

Yup.
But, what if there isn’t anyone out there willing to give him that big long term deal he feels that he deserves?

 

he's barely worth his current deal

 

I agree.

 

Him and Rui can go

 

I'm tempted to run it back with a real coach. Always have the trade deadline to make moves.

but of course with changes to fill the holes in the roster. I'm ok lettling DLO walk and keeping Dinwiddie and Miami guy. If healthy, they suit the need IMO.

 

I understand the general sentiment around DLo, but prepare to be underwhelmed and frustrated by whoever his replacement is next year.

 

he's actually the perfect offensive fit for lebron and AD--we just stopped using him as a ballhandler as games wore on. maybe some of that was justified trust issues, but we looked better with him initiating than with lebron doing it, imo. and clearly being relegated to a spot up shooter doesn't suit him (or almost anyone, tbh).

i think we're heading for another schroder lose/lose situation, where dlo ends up somewhere worse for him and we end up in a worse situation without him.

i do think that dlo and reaves with lebron at the 4 is just really hard to build a defense around. almost every other team has someone who can blow by our guards and lebron's not much of a deterrent or rebounder anymore. bucket city. denver, ironically, is one of the few teams that doesn't present his problem for us as much (murray's a jump shooter).

 

Ham making him a spacer/shooter was one of the few good things he did.

Did no one see what happened when he tried to break down the defense against a locked in Denver team in the 4th with his handle?. Both Murray and KCp either stole the ball or put him in a bad spot.

He score a nice bucket off a designed play but he can not for the life of him get to the rim or get to the line.

One thing the Lakers were able to unlock with him though was the shooting: of course he missed a bunch of open one in the first half but that was probably shooting variance unfortunately. He shot better in the second half

Anyways I like DLo but he's a limited player

 

Hope he opts in...bcuz if he opts out...we are losing him to Orlando or some team like that.

Losing DLO would be a HUGE blow from both an asset management perspective and just talent perspective. The drop-off will be STEEP as well...so anyone thinking "good riddance" might wanna rethink that. We have to find a way to bring him back at a cost controlled number...something like 2-3 years at $18-20M a year would be good. Then you dump Vincent, and you re-sign Dinwiddie. IDK if DLO will help us in a S&T scenario either....

 

AR and DLO (as fun as they are), can't play together in the PO. Murray was a great idea, too bad it didn't happen.

 

Yeah Dlo up top handling the ball is a nightmare as the game gets tight. Stupid passes, weak handle, zero strength, zero speed. Park your a** in the corner and shoot/attack close outs.

 

TBH - there's something about DLo that kinda reminds me of Lowry when they went through MULTIPLE years of disappointment in the playoffs for the Raptors before finally having his moment in 2019. Sometimes it just takes time to build chemistry....the Lakers are a BETTER COACH away from beating the f***ing defending champs and by far the best team in the league. I hope the Lakers can see that...and they need act on that. DLO coulda played a lot better, but he DID play better than last year...maybe another year in the playoffs next year he will perform better, who knows? We gotta build something right? Losing DLO does us no favors - we need to keep him to at the very least dangle him in a trade

 

yeah, i agree. he's done here. i'm a supporter, but he's had two chances and largely wilted twice. i'd tell his agent we'd love to work with him to get him to a place he wants if we can get something we need.

 

This is exactly why he might just be right back with us on a friendly little deal. There's no point in DLO going elsewhere at this point...he might as well stick it out with the Lakers, sign a 3-4 year deal at $16-18M per year, and call it a day.

 

I think losing him for nothing is SOOOO bad. We cannot make this mistake esp when we gave up a 1st round pick in the deal that brought him here.

Keep him at a reasonable salary that isn't too long of a deal, and he can easily be dealt instead of losing him for nothing