As far as playing Russell over Lou down the stretch...despite this being the Clarkson thread...Ya gotta play Russell. Not all minutes are created equal in this league. Minutes at the end of quarters are different than minutes in the middle of quarters. Back when the Lakers were winning their 3-peat, they would always go on huge runs to close out quarters. It's different. Russell needs to experience those end game minutes. I agree that wins attract FAs, but someone like Durant is smart enough to look at the development of our youngsters. If, for example, we win 35 games relying heavily on Lou and Swaggy or whatever, and Russell doesn't develop, Durant won't look at us. But if we win 27 games, with most of those wins coming towards the end of the season with Russell leading the charge, then he definitely looks at us. Durant isn't going to log on to ESPN at the end of the season and look at the win total and base his decision on that. He's going to look at who led the team to those wins, did the team steadily improve throughout the season, etc.
Had no idea Jordan went to high school in San Antonio. Pretty cool to have one of my favorite current Lakers having gone to school in my home town.
Blasphemy. Byron is a well known defensive specialist... ask him if you don't believe me. All the Lakers do is practice D, and it SHOWS. You must be blind my friend
You can't move Russell to SG. He's being groomed to be a franchise PG. he's not going to become that unless we put the ball in his hands and push him to become great. Byron has a good history with helping PG's reach the next level then angering them and getting fired, so I'm hoping history repeats itself all around.
You would think Curry has to come back to Earth because he's in another world right now, but really the way he shoots the basketball. How efficient he is, how effortless he makes it seem, how he can shoot off the dribble, how quick his release is it wouldn't surprise me. Also Golden State have outstanding bigs when it comes to setting good screens.
That's exactly where he needed to improve this season; grant it, it's a small sample size, but encouraging nonetheless.
Yeah we may have gotten the best 2 players from last year's draft class. That's primarily the reason why I'm in no rush to develop Russell.
