D'Angelo Russell Discussion: Opted In!

Idk..I really don't see why Austin, should be prioritized over Lebron, AD or C'lo in getting up shots. He's not the facilitator that Lebron or C'lo are either. His defense is ok..against certain matchups but will never be high end.

He's great as a 4th option though. Future All Star and what not? I'm not sure about all that, he's kinda close to his ceiling, right now IMO. He is still a money player tho..ie the Havelicek comparison.

 

Innovation over emulation. Cater to your strengths, f*** what everyone else is doing, make them adjust to you.

 

Yeah I've been preaching about running it back. We, hopefully, have a better coach and that lineup just needs minutes

 

I've pretty much always had the same perspective as well, but it's pretty much never possible to have the exact team back just due to contracts, etc.

 

Yeah sure, and I would still change 2/3 players, trying to get a little better here and there. But I'm fine going with the same core, we won multiple games against top seeders, Ham was killing us. He's out, we have more chances

 

Ya, and how are Edey and Drummond going to score or cover players who can shoot from the outside? Is Edey and Drummond going to magically turn into David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon?

 

i have no idea what's going to happen with edey at the next level, but i think teams have success with bigs who can't defend outside the paint quite a bit. you do need either a strategic or a personnel counter when teams go 5-out on you, and offensively, you have to commit to leveraging your size advantage, which can be tough, especially in the three-happy current nba.

but i can still remember when phil jackson almost upset the d'antoni suns (at their peak) by using kwame brown (!) and lamar odom's size advantages at their spots on offense. that was a pretty awesome coaching display, imo, but it shows that it's always best to try to work to your advantage, and that going against the grain isn't always bad. had we played their game, they would have killed us like everyone expected. but we made them play our game, and a lucky bounce saved their bacon.

 

There's times where you have to get away from it, like it happens with Gobert here and there. But we just saw KAT defending 4s and getting away with it. AD is much more comfortable defending 4s and has more blocks for being the help defender. I think AD's DPOY version is at 4

AD doesn't have KAT shooting though, which limits Lebron's attack to the paint with 4 towers in front of him. But I still think it would give us a few minutes during each game where we make the other team uncomfortable with such size and not all of them have the personnel, especially in the regular season.

Say you get Valanciunas or Drummond. You can stack them with AD in the starting lineup and only have 16 minutes with them together, that's 1/3 of the game. LeBron can play only 8/10 of them, so he only need to guard the 3 for those 8/10 minutes per game.
Then Val would do 8 minutes alone and get 24 total and AD would play 24 minutes at 5, totaling 40. You can decrease AD and Val total minutes by 5 or 10 playing your backup center, let's say Hayes.

In the playoffs, it may not work in some matchups, but you can always throw Rui or Vando (if we don't trade both for such 5) in the lineup, if you need to adjust. Minny closed a lot of times with Reid. But they still played Gobert for most of the game.

I would love to see AD at the 4 again, but I don't think it will happen unfortunately

Tldr:
You can start AD at the 4 and have:
AD at the 4 for 16 minutes
AD at the 5 for 20/24 minutes
Valanciunas at 5 with AD for 16 minutes
Valanciunas at 5 w/o AD for 8 minutes
LeBron at 3 for 8 minutes
LeBron at 4 for 30 minutes
Rui/Vando could replace AD in the lineup when he's out, instead of Hayes, or Valanciunas in a playoff series we need to adjust

Would Valanciunas accept 3/33? We could S&T with Gabe and keep DLo or the MLE if he walks

 

very nicely outlined. i feel like we've shown this is possible. and lebron has become a better shooter since then. also like the idea of moving gabe for a center, especially if we can count on dinwiddie and/or cp3 playing some pg for us.

 

Yeah, just on rebounds we would be a headache and you don't want to attack the paint with AD being the 2nd 7 footer you need to worry about

 

Why has there been zero talk around DLO?

We need to know what the hell is going on with him...preference is to bring him back just so we don't lose him for nothing

Other option would be for him to opt in and then trade him to a team of his preference...

I guess zero talk around DLO is good cuz maybe teams aren't interested and then that puts him in an interesting position with us...

 

I'm not sure. I think when we have rumours is because nothing is signed and one of the interested parties (teams or players/agents) is leaking stuff to help their goal.

So this may indicate that he already has a contract lined up

 

If the Lakers really wanted him back, I think they would have released something to the press, saying they are hoping he opts into his contract. Nothing has happened, so I suppose he could be reading between the lines.

 

Future assistant coach trying to convince Dlo to opt in?

 

Rondo’s hair!

 

was going to ask this bc too lazy to look up right now.

very curious to see how/where he lands. strong arguments could be made for opting in or out. and strong arguments could be made for us keeping or trading him.

 

Rondo looks to be in great shape.

 

Buuuut...




Lane also said on his pod last night there's been some recent whispers about DLO potentially picking up his option.

 

well, it has no bearing on murray now, but i actually think dlo opting is still better for us overall. i know many people will be pissed, but we'll be in prime position to deal at the deadline AND have some continuity, roster-wise to start the year. we fumbled that hard last year, but maybe we won't this time?

i just think dlo is better than what we can get with the mle--if that is even an option if he opts out.