D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

f*** Booker. Clown doesn't know how to rebound or pass. And not just anyone can get off 20+ FGA. Ask Kobe.

 

29-6-4-4. Rubbish.

 

I hope people caught that I was joking earlier, I think they did. I greatly prefer this Russ to passive Russ. If he wants to try and be a scorer and run the show out there, great, I like to see that as long as he's engaged most of the time.

 

...as you stated in a post before, there is a lack of "finishers" on this team. Ingram plays facilitator and then there's Randle who prefers to create on his own. Deng and Moz are basically useless. That leaves only Young who is catch and shoot. I'm sure this is not lost on Johnson...

 

Skip pass equals pg?

The point with D'Angelo is that he does not lead the troops which is typically the point guard's duty. This will of course be taken the wrong way but Huertas knew how to organize the offense smoothly. It came naturally to him. D'Angelo obviously is a quarter million times the player Huertas is, but organizing the offense isn't one of his strengths. Obviously it would help if Young didn't go 1-9 but it would also help if Russell's responsibility wasn't looking after other people's offense and just doing his own thing.

Traditional guard roles aren't what they used to be, but having a guy like Ball on the team who is more naturally inclined to organize the offense would be beneficial to everyone including Russell. Free him up to do his own thing.

 

Russell's up to 4.7 assists per game in under 27 minutes. Since he returned from injury, he's averaging 6 assists per game (vs. 3.0 TO), which would put him at 18th in the league. In the 17 games where he has played at least 30 minutes, he's handed out 104 assists - 6.1 per game. There's plenty of evidence suggesting that DAR is moving toward being a 6 assist per game guy.

And some thought we were too hard on Randle? Russ just played one of the better games of the season, and the criticisms and back-handed compliments are dominating the thread.

 

Organizing an offense is what guys like Kidd, Nash, Thomas, and at the collegiate level Ball excel at: putting the offense in its best position to be successful. It's picking your spots effectively and efficiently while putting your teammates in positions to excel as well. It's really not D'Angelo's strength. I don't see why that's an insult.

Edit: Thomas is Isiah by the way. I also didn't include Paul. Obviously those are all really good organizers and we don't need one of them. We need a guy inclined to think that way. Ingram is maybe the closest on the team... not a good look.

Scouts who have watched him since college and high school all say he played SG and off the ball most of his life. It's his natural inclination to score. What exactly is wrong or insulting about that? It is who he is. Last night he played to that strength and put together a great game for himself. That's not an insult, it's a fact. I much prefer the Russell from last night to the one we saw who was trying to pass too much and make himself a pg. I'd rather he take 26 shots than 3.

I never said Ball was better or a better prospect. I think Fultz is better, but not Ball. That doesn't mean Russell couldn't benefit from his presence. I understand you like Russell, but this isn't an attack on him, it's an observation. Just because he's the most suited to play lead guard on the team doesn't mean he's the one who should be the lead guard of our future. We should be adding complementary talent to our better players.

As for not playing with talent, I disagree. I think Randle and Ingram are very talented, but not good fits since one can't hit open shots and one wont take open shots. Just because you don't like Randle doesn't mean he's not talented, he has a tremendous amount of natural talent, he's just not a smart player and he's determined not to learn.

 

I think his hockey assists would go up for sure. Nance doesn't shoot outside enough either. Similar problem to Randle but Nance impacts the game in a lot more ways than Randle does.