D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Adopting A Professional Attitude

I brought up the difference between Zinger and DLo, seeing how both of them were used to dump salary for cap space and certain folks harping on how we didn't get enough of a return in the DLo trade.

One difference is the guys they were attached to in the dump had value, unless y'all want to make a case for Moz on a 3yr deal being of better value vs Hardaway/Lee on 2yr deals.

The other obvious differencevus their physical stature. In terms of combo guards..they are a dime a dozen. This isn't something that should miff you. I had no idea DLo was 6'5", so of course I'm not considering him a tall PG. I don't even think Zo is at 6'6", especially when Simmons is in the league and Magic revolutionized the position at his height.

What makes Zinger special is his height and the fact he can shoot. It's why KG, AD and Giannis are so coveted. It's why he got the unicorn moniker.

Anyways my beef has never been who's better between Zo and DLo. My beef is with folks tying to insinuate that Magic/Rob's job security is tied to DLo.

You want to talk about goalposts: let's talk about it. The goal is for thIs FO to make us relevant asap. DLo doesn't fit that narrative, even if he didn't have a checkered past here. It's why most of our kids either have been made available or are now available for win-now stars.

Folks bring up all-star as a means to quantify the level of f*** up by our FO, which is why I need to undermine his selection pointing out key injuries/trades and strength of conference. But I'm certain if you put some of our kids in the east (before it got stronger at the deadline) and play them at high usage, they would be all-star candidates too.

The Nets are 6th in the east and with their record out west would be 10th. Meanwhile the 6th team in the West has no all-star candidates to their name...which is why I brought up Spida (another scoring combo guard btw) and Gobert.

Anyways, the FO found a way to get out of a 3yr nearly 50m deal...and they attached DLo to it (a guy that tarnished his own value with the Swag nonsense). Let's say, they held off on that deal and tried to clear room for Bron when he committed to us...what's to say BK would accept the deal then, especially if DLo had an injury plagued season again?

 

The arguments here are laughable. I don't even respond to them because it takes away from the quality of the thread.

I guess if we drafted Okafor everyone would have been happy, right?

He can make 10 more All-Star appearances, the Lakers could strike out for the next 10 years in Free Agency, and there will ALWAYS be a contingent of anti Russell fans justifying the trade.

 

Thought this was pretty cool - GoldenThroat on LG aka Lakers Film Room aka Pete Zayas on Russell

Somebody asked if they predicted if this is where he thought Russell would be at this age and his response

"This is about where I would've expected him to be with a good coach/system. His passing/ball-handling has improved a lot this year based on what I've seen, with him making fewer dumb mistakes and having a better feel for when to make some of his flashier passes.

I underestimated his ability to get white hot a bit though. I knew he had that in him, but I didn't think he'd be able to access that as frequently as he has recently. If he's doing that this frequently at 22, he's gonna be a handful at 25-27.

I think the next step for him is learning how to use his physicality to draw more free throws."

 

RE: Russell's comment on not being a Laker anymore...

"Of course he's glad he's no longer a Laker. We've got our heads so far up our own a**** that people were like "he better shape up or else the Lakers are gonna ship him out!" like that's a bad thing."

 

So much more commentary; I'll post a scouting report he had 2 years ago; Russell is my favorite prospect out of everybody we have drafted, and I'm admittedly bias.

Kid had so much working against him; glad he's an overcomer...

 

but fox hole and bro code and such...

QED

 

Any chance we could get him for a few games?

 

Damn, man. F*** me.

 

It all started with b0ron. Magic just listened to his buddy and here we are

 

- Love for vets (even when playing poorly)
- Short leash for young players (even when playing well)
- Poor recognition of game flow (Leaves bad lineups out there too long while leads grow)
- Poor rotation management (Has no sense of who plays well with each other)
- Gameplans (offense/defense what exactly are we doing 60 games into the season, still waiting for any semblance of improvement)
- Assistant coach at best, in over his head as head coach

 

thought luke was pretty good last year. i think it's basically impossible to coach a lebron/rondo team. i think he's been under order to keep vets happy (or lose his job). he should have realized he's going to lose his job anyway, so he should go out his way.

as for what they're doing, it's not what he wants, imo. he's clearly articulated how he would prefer to play, but he's been given very few players who can/want to play that way. should he be more flexible? i suppose. i think he's trying, but his heart's not in it.

anyway, guys getting beat on routine back cuts every 5th trip down isn't on the coach. he pulls those guys, and their replacements just replicate the performance.

byron was objectively terrible. i think luke is ok and will have success elsewhere, first as an assistant and then as a head coach. when he was hired, it was thought to be a pretty long rebuild, and he might have been the right choice for that. now it's not.