D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Opted In!

Was he though? He has only two good games in the playoffs by my reasoning. The close out game against Memphis and game 3 blow out against the Warriors. But he didn’t win us either game, in both games AD’s defense just smothered the other team in the first half and we ran away with it.

And that’s kind of the issue with DLO - with no pressure he shot 5/9 and 5/8 from three and paraded around with ice in his veins. But when there was any kind of pressure, his veins were luke warm and he was shooting 39%/24% outside those two games.

I don’t think he was good at all in the playoffs in any round. It’s just laughable to see him yapping on about what more could he do and that he’s unguardable. Shows a complete lack of awareness and defensive mechanism.

 

He’s going to get played right out of the rotation on some nights because of adding Gabe Vincent. Their demeanors are polar opposite of one another. You don’t need to guess which personality I prefer.

 

i mean, i agree with most of what you're saying, but this was huge. down 7 under 5 minutes to go. if you lose this game, you've given back home court advantage. three straight threes and the win. let's be fair. he was junk in some games (and the whole denver series), but if we didn't have him, we probably lose in round 1 or miss the playoffs entirely.

again, i agree he's deluded about his actual ability, and his lack of accountability is alarming. but he can play and does do things that help you win.

 

Yeah that’s nice he hit those three 3’s in a row. But at the same time, he was 4/11 before that and 0/5 from three. If he actually plays to his averages we’re never in a hole in that game to begin with. Also we were more in a hole because AD disappeared for that one.

DLO wasn’t good in the playoffs at all, I don’t think that’s debatable, the fact that no one wanted him and he had to take a substantial pay cut points to that. I just think he’s deluded, if you want to be a good regular season player that’s fine, there’s value in that and we’ll take it. But when the lights turned bright, he wilted.

 

The assumption is we get another close to him player. As an example, I think if we had Mike Conley, we have the same result. Now, no DLO at all, yeah we’re missing a significant rotation player at PG. But if we get a rotation PG, the result is the same.

 

Whoever the publicist is that thought it’d be a good idea for DLo to go on a guy’s podcast who he ultimately replaced mid season, needs their a** kicked. Still think he and AR are a pretty good backcourt tandem.

 

i mean, we can play these games pretty easily with lots of players, imo. not many have that clip to throw out.

yeah, simpy being "not russell westbrook" was huge. but again, schroder and our new guy (vincent) also had disappearing acts and were less effective in the regular season than dlo.

i think he's now appropriately paid, and we should be able to find the right role for him given the rest of the roster. he has a skillset we needed and doesn't exist elsewhere on the roster, imo.

 

Agree with all of this. I think we're fine at PG because we have AR and Bron, but I don't love our true PG rotation though. Russell just seems scared of the moment. Ideally I'd have someone like Brogdon out there on a team like this. Not saying him and his injury history specifically, but he's just so steady.

 

i think the hope is vincent plays a steady hand/derek fisher type role for us with russell being a minutes-eating playmaker in the regular season. this can work, imo. and again, if it doesn't, russell's contract can be moved for a less talented player who might fit our needs better as they emerge.

but for now, i still think dlo brings things that we missed for the past couple of years. namely, a bona fide third scorer and shooter.

 

I kinda feel like DLO is setting himself up to be the next scapegoat of the team. I don't necessarily disagree with the doubts on him, but I do think he helped us get to the playoffs and had some good games here and there.

I was one of the 3 or 4 people who openly advocated for Conley last year but I'm honestly not down on DLO. He gave us nothing against Denver, but I do think he can help us again in the regular season. Also think that having Vincent will either push him to contribute consistently or at the very least gives us a guy who can step in and make sure we don't completely fall off if DLO isn't playing well.

 

Yeah. This is basically how I see it.

 

The plan is reasonable except the big flaw is how is this supposed to work if the Lakers meet Denver again?
Both D.Lo and Vincent weren't great, ok probably bad is better a term, against Denver - FO seems like they are hoping Denver will be worse without Brown (I agree with this) but not having a guy to throw on Murray was a problem. I mean Lebron was the best 1v1 defender vs Jokic and Murray which doesn't seem like a great plan to repeat since the Lakers got swept.

Pinning a lot of hope son Prince and Christie fixing the matchup problems at guard along with Denver being worse next year. Could happen but doesn't seem like something people would wager a lot of money either

 

Yeah Vincent was bad against the Heat too .. Small PG get exposed in the playoffs soon or later

Lakers need to go back to the 2020 without PG lineup in the playoffs .

Christie
Reaves
Prince or Rui
Bron
AD

 

Honestly, I do kind of expect the Nuggets to come back down to earth a bit this year. I think they will be worse without Brown but I also kind of feel like last year was just their year and the ball always bounced their way in that series against us. Not trying to take anything away from them, but I feel like at least some of that series was a result of us running out of gas. I don't think (or at least hope) that will be an issue for us this year and expect us to perform better against them than last year.

I concede this is an extremely homer take...lol

 

we retooled, renewed, reinforced..... we have reason to be optimistic that the squad will have grown from that experience and be ready to put up one heckuva fight this next year assuming we stay healthy, etc.

 

Agreed Cookie. That would have been a good time for dlo to have kept his mouth shut. I was kind of luke warm on him anyway and that didn't help. Good news is with our current roster anything positive out of him is a bonus. We don't need him and probably have a better starting line up if he isn't in it. I personally like using the regular season to build chemistry for the playoffs so he wouldn't weigh heavily into my plans.

 

they're a really shallow team who was all healthy, clicking, and motivated. i'll be shocked if they do it again and wouldn't be surprised if they were upset in the first round. it's amazing how quickly we forget that denver was consistently disappointing in the playoffs until last year, with a lot of the same cast and coach.

anyway, point is that i'm not planning my team based on beating denver. i'm just trying to throw the best product i can together. we're a little thin in the frontcourt given AD and lebron's penchant for missing games, but otherwise, i really like the roster, dlo included. his salary and role should be appropriate now.

 

I don't think this is all that fair to Denver as Murray missed basically the last two years: when''s he been healthy they've gone to the WCF and won the title.
Basically the same as the AD/Lebron pairing.

I do think that it's interesting that when the Lakers have been healthy and when Denver has been healthy they are the only two teams to knock each other out: so would like to finish up the off-season by trying to figure out more Denver counters. Denver famously came back and the Clippers the only time they've been healthy and the Suns in whatever incarnation they are in haven't been able to beat any healthy team of note. (I happen to think losing Brown and to a much lesser extent Green is going to hurt them - as you note they are thin)

 

brown was huge for them, imo. green big, but they can find another minimum magic player to do what he did, imo. but brown won't be replaced, and braun isn't brown. i think it's an underplayed storyline, tbh. all anyone wants to talk about is brown being overpaid instead of wtf denver is going to do without its top perimeter defender and overall jackknife of a player.

your other points are fair--murray being hurt when they lost. though, again, murray being hurt has been a thing--we're sure AD will be hurt, shouldn't we be sure murray will, too?

anyway, i just don't really think it's a great idea to load up to beat one team. we have a roster that can beat lots of teams (denver included, imo).