D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

Im no byron fan, but putting Russell on the bench has helped him out. Similar to how it worked for clarkson last year. I think its fine if russell comes off the bench the rest of the year (as long as he gets the proper amount of minutes) and starts next year after a summer of hard work and shaping his body.

 

Yea, just because the result worked out does not mean the methods were sound. People luck into things all the time.

 

I wanna see him win Rookie of the Month, would those numbers cut it?

 

It's not really a matter of the bench or starting, it's the personnel he's running with. It's not hard to already tell that Russell is better on a team that has movement and spacing.

Randle, Young, Sacre, Williams provide tall of the necessary pieces to open up the floor for him. With Kobe, Clarkson, Hibbert, he didn't have many options because 1. Hibbert was setting terrible screens and not rolling 2. Kobe was chucking shots 3. Jordan needs the ball in his hands to create.

 

I'm starting to feel that if not for Byron Scott, Russell would be somewhere in the running for rookie of the year by the end of this year. Hell he may be in some conversations anyway "in spite" of Scott. Looking at anyway what he's been showing and delivering on the court. His shooting you can see it already, is going to be elite. Had he been able to run modern offensive sets and P&R which are his strengths, with the right players all of the time ..... hello as well Tarik Black ..... then he would as he said he would ....have figured it out maybe 2 -3 - 4 weeks ago and made HIS adjustments as a competitor. As it is he's handicapped as a rookie with Clown Byron. Yeah, dropped to 2nd string looks good in media voter land, thanks a lot coach. :Headpoint:

 

^ fo sho .

 

Then quit jerking with him and Randle both, you p***k! It's not looking much unlike Scott wanting the outsiders' perceptions to be that he molded and made these guys great in their rookie seasons by teaching all the old school Lakers way and all that happy horse bleep. GTF out of their way. Put them back in the starting lineup ASAP. What are you proving with Nance and Williams?????

 

Yeah its a bit concerning to see how little he's communicating with these young guys. You'd think it would be the most important aspect of his job at this point.

 

as much as I don't want to defend Byron, some of Russell's improvement is about natural acclimation to the game. he was given the starting job and plenty of minutes from day one, and he wasn't playing like this. Byron will let him start again if he keeps playing with confidence.

that said, Byron's bizarre policy of non-communication is probably enough to cost him his job (well, that and his overall atrocious record across several years and teams), but some of Russell's late emergence is on him not being ready for the nba. not a huge crime, he's 19. but towns was ready. hopefully, he's got the hang of it now; kobe seems to be implying as much.

 

He's from the John Wayne school of coaching.

 

Russell was awful tonight. Much like Clarkson too causal with the ball. When they trap the pick and roll he's gotta be patient and not try and force the issue. Quit trying to split doubles. He had like one drive all night. Also seemed like he was drifting on some of his shots. Get yourself square and balanced. Needs to close out better.