D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

This looks precisely like the kind of game D'Angelo could have on any given night when he's gotten more comfortable in the NBA.

 

Kidd was an excellent on ball defender with his quick hands and solid, compact physique along with the requisite foot speed. Russell with his long, lanky frame likely won't be that good put he could be above average. The latter though looks to have better shooting mechanics.

 

Boooooo!!!!

 

For some reason, Russell is getting a lot of criticism by the media. He's been compared against Mudiay and Okafor a lot, so here are some stats to debunk everything.

Real +/-
This is ESPN's version of RAPM. It is an attempt to show your impact on the field by trying to adjust your +/- with who you play with and who you play against. Okafor and Mudiay are last in the league. In other words, they are the two most detrimental players in the league in terms of impact. That's quite the accomplishment for Okafor, considering he plays on the already terrible 76ers. In any case, Russell outperforms the two.



The chart might be a bit confusing to look at because all 3 are in the negative, but higher is better. Being in the negative for rookies is also pretty standard.

If we focus on just offense, the difference is even more apparent.



Lets also take a look at TS%. Russell admittedly started off slow, but he has consistently improved throughout the season whereas the other two have consistently gotten worse. It has now reached the point where Russell is equivalent to Okafor in efficiency and much better than Mudiay.



If we take a look at TO ratio, Russell is once again the best of the 3. This past week was actually really bad for him in terms of turnovers, but hey, he's still the best. For a big guy, Okafor sure does turn the ball over a lot. A lot of 76ers fans also consider him a black hole on offense.

(Lower is better)



In terms of assist-turnover ratio, Russell has consistently been at the top. This past week drastically dropped that ratio so he is below Mudiay...for now. Okafor is way below them.



Finally, of course Okafor is dominating the other two in terms of rebounding. Okafor has been hovering around 13%. Russell has progressively improved throughout the season whereas Mudiay is starting to decline.



In almost every conceivable way, Russell has been better than the other two. Russell is supposed to be the "prospect" with the highest potential, but he's already outperforming two guys who were supposed to be more "NBA-ready".

 

Pretty great, but I think those numbers would regress a bit if you switched their positions. For instance, I figure if you put D'Angelo on Philly or Denver his efficiency would go down as his turnovers increase so that he's not blowing the field away.

However, if you put Okafor or Mudiay on our team, I'm not sure they're able to approximate Russell's numbers either. I think those two ARE more capable of handling the load than Russell. I'm not sure that's truly debatable. They're bigger, stronger, etc. That's not to say they're flawless, but just physically they're more capable than D'Angelo is right now.

The point is I'm not sure Mudiay or Okafor would be able to do what Russell is doing: thriving in efficiency and smart play while I'm fairly sure Russell could approximate what they're doing: putting up big numbers as they play big minutes and adjust to the learning curve.

 

I think the Jason Kidd analogy for Russell is right on. That's what I can see for his potential as well. It's pretty perfect. Not so athletic but great vision, some incredible passing, pass first but good pull up J, knock down the occasional open three, run the offense, good defender. That's really the model for Russell and it's a great goal, and potentially doable. One thing that separates J. Kidd though was his tenacity and his mental toughness. He's got that Oakland toughness that he was brought up with. Don't know if Russell is made of such stern stuff, but we'll see how it goes. I think he has the physical and basketball attributes to model his game after Kidd. The mental toughness is it's own thing.

 

I would like to see an in depth analysis of grit added to all those fancy lines and colors. It's the true measure of a player.

 

Looking more and more comfortable on offense.

The best example of this last game IMO was when Kobe passed it to Russ when he was running up toward the top of the key. With no hesitation he got it and shot it quickly. He's learning how to get involved and find his spots.