D'Angelo Russell Appreciation Thread

[SashaTheMachine]

Future 60 minutes feature:
how the nets stole D'Angelo Russell

Prok: "how u say... There is no magic in Roosia.

*Loads clip*

[Dloading99]

Hilarious. Magics like I'll give you everything. what you want my best player. take Russell.

[hazy_01]

I really wish Magic didn't say those comments, it makes Lakers expect some unusual greatness from their drafted players right off the gate. Simply unrealistic expectations as most players take 3-4 years to develop.

Also, I don't even understand why is there a false sense of urgency to create a playoff team when Warriors will continue their dominance for another 2-3 years (didn't Luke make some comment about not going all-in during this period?). By then the core of Dlo, Ingram and Ball would be entering the start of their primes and Mozgov/Deng contracts would be almost up. Oh well, I really hope I'm flat-out wrong and Lakers have some of sort of plan to create a contending team and not some fake-ass fringe playoff team.

[ISayshowmee]

I really wish Magic didn't say those comments, it makes Lakers expect some unusual greatness from their drafted players right off the gate. Simply unrealistic expectations as most players take 3-4 years to develop.

Also, I don't even understand why is there a false sense of urgency to create a playoff team when Warriors will continue their dominance for another 2-3 years (didn't Luke make some comment about not going all-in during this period?). By then the core of Dlo, Ingram and Ball would be entering the start of their primes and Mozgov/Deng contracts would be almost up. Oh well, I really hope I'm flat-out wrong and Lakers have some of sort of plan to create a contending team and not some fake-ass fringe playoff team.

The sense if urgency is not necessarily to make the playoffs. The last few seasons, the highlights had become the ping pong ball evening to determine the draft picks.

Folks, Lakers need to get back to competitive basketball. Are you not tired of seeing the Lakers' season done in January ?

[The Skyhook]

Unless we had a larger deal in place, no need to dump Russell right now.

We should have given him a chance to do better in his 3rd year, at least considering how low his value was league-wide. That was the true shocker.

Why sell low when your asset has potential? When we gain so little by cashing right now? It's dumb, sorry, especially on a rebuilding team.

And Adding Kuzma and Hart, fine prospects, doesn't compensate for Russell's potential in his 3rd season.

I disagree with Magic and Pelinka about capspace being sacred. First, talent is sacred. We lost top quality talent. Second, capspace is a means to an end. We can get desired talent through trades. Third, we could have increased our capspace while preserving talent if we were more patient this year.

What if D'Angelo took that next step his third season next to Ball, who dominates without dominating the ball?

How much could he have returned?

We'll never know, but I think it's hard to deny that Russell would have improved - not necessarily on the level of hall of fame talent, which I've vehemently argued against as unfair and unrealistic expectations, but certainly one of the best young guards in the league with all star potential.

And we just let him go for capspace that we can't use until next summer, capspace that we could have created by other means (trading Clarkson and/or Randle, renouncing Brewer).

Rash move, probably emotional on Magic's part, or a deal that fell apart.

Exactly. Other than fear that a Lopez expiring type deal wouldn't be available at the deadline, there was no reason to deal Russell. This move had personal vendetta written all over it. Everything Magic has said before and since trading Russell, made it clear he doesn't like Russell. It's a damn shame because I honestly think Russell and Zo would have been an outstanding fit next to one another. They skill sets complimen each other well.

[Penberthy]

Russell is not worth the #9 or #12 pick in this years draft. Literally.

We essentially traded a lottery-protected first (DLO's value) + Mozgov's albatross for an expiring + 27. The end.

[dockingsched]

Of course Russell is worth a top 12 pick, just cause the reports said they were calling with that offer doesn't mean that the entire deal would've been just DLo for Russell.

Lakers got the 27th pick and were able to dump Mozgov. if someone with the 12th wanted to dump a contract like Mozgov you better believe it would've cost them more than some 15 spot drop.

[Dloading99]

First of all I want to give some shout outs to Skyhook Milesfides and hazy_01 please respond and elaborate more. all very smart and great posts and points. I'd like to add to this. I agree with all of your comments.

First off. Deangelo and Ball could've been a splash brothers backcourt. and maybe even more dynamic with both guards ability to handle the ball and find open shooters. and both guards court vision. especially lonzos court vision. another reason I compare it to those two because of Lonzos ability to shoot the three pointer 42% at UCLA. and Deangelos great three point ability. where the NBA is now teams scrambling to find three point shooters. for us to trade one of ours. and not have that dynamic backcourt is puzzling. we would have one of the longest backcourts in the NBA with Russell at 6,5 and Lonzo at 6,6. and I think Lonzo would be able to guard the other guard that deangelo couldn't.


Deangleo was very crafty in the passing lanes getting steals and with Lonzo those two would be beast. Deangelo would be great off the catch and shoot with Lonzo finding him. and allowing Ingram to get in the lane with Penetration or shooting the ball. with Randle getting wide open looks and a clear path to the basket with the lane wide open and the spacing.

Do yall wanna know why Draymond is so good. cause most of his plays he goes right to the basket because of that spacing Curry and Klay create. Randle would've done the same thing with us.

So Magic didn't think about that. of course he wouldn't a guy like that wouldn't think about any analytics. all he would say and probably did say is I need a leader my showtime team I was the Leader Russell aint no leader. he's too immature. joking in the locker room. I need a showtime player. a basketball player. not thinking of the overall game.


Just having Deangelo and Lonzo on the court together creates a mistmatch for the defense and gives us the advantage every night. people always say how did Jerry West rebuild the Warriors it's simple they drafted Stephen Curry and they drafted Klay Thompson when Klay stepped on the court they were unguardable. any of us playing pick up basketball if you have two great shooters on the court you can't sag to one cause the other is open and it's spaces the lane. surprising Magic and Rob didn't see that. and I'm surprised Ryan West And Luke Walton didn't step up and say anything about that.



Jeanie Jeanie just gave Magic that power but his behavior has been bizarre. first Magic is all like I'm here for advice whatever Jim and Mitch need. I'm here. I want to mentor Deangelo. and then all of a sudden. "I want to call the shots." Jim mitch fired.

Then Russell comments. also the We have to always have a superstar on the Lakers. it sounded more like someone trying to sale circus tickets instead of the overall goal of all of us laker fans building a championship team. with our core players.



Russell being moved wasn't just about the player. it was why are you obviously making the team not better. Russell Ball Ingram Randle Zubac that's a great young team. other players would want to play with that team. Devin Booker Karl Anthony Towns. with the way players are trying to form superteams I would be focused on those two guys. guys who are really good friends with Deangelo. they flucked that up. because for some reason they think they have a chance with Paul George or Lebron James.




Lakers should know we are not getting those guys. get off the Westbrook Cousins George Lebron thing. those guys are already forming their super teams and none of them are with the Lakers. focus on the guys who you can get. the other superstars the other players I mentioned.


Why try to get Lopez we already have a young center in Zubac who showed he can play why mess with his development by bringing in Lopez who's going to play great. you're going to have to pay him. and then Zubac can't start. we also had Larry Nance our stretch five. so the trade is just dumb. and Mozgof could shoot and shot great from the free throw line. was a good defensive center. When he played he did make plays. look at the Golden State game. These guys just decided to Tank and stopped playing him and Deng. How would you play if you just came to the game in street clothes.



I'm so passionate about this trade because all of the rebuild that we did. just got ruined for cap space which makes no sense. Lakers fans you know what I'm talking about. from Dwight howard going to Houston to every free agent telling thanks but no thanks. to not getting meetings with Free agents. We were tanking to get Russell who turned out to be a great player from a Draft of Devin Booker Karl Anthony Towns Kristof Porzingis Myles Turner. we got nothing. it's like we tanked and then our player we got for tanking Magic was like he's erased. so what was that Tank for?



Then you look at the Way Brandon Ingram was playing with Russell off of Russell towards the end of the year and it looked great. it was actually watchable Lakers basketball. think Dirk and Nash when they finally got it together in Dallas. you could tell those two were hanging out off of the court. and really were developing team chemistry. you even saw Ingram with the Crazy Russell hair locks. it was like we had our own OKC our own Golden State. and we knew these guys would get it together. then we get the number two pick and we get Ball.


And all of us Laker Fans are like We Got Ball Russell Ingram Randle Zubac that's something to get stoked about. now we have Clarkson and Newab at the two guard. What?


WHAT WAS MAGIC THINKING?????????


and all the reporters on ESPN laughing at us how we suck and no one wants to play there. and right on cue today here we go reporters saying I don't know what the Lakers are doing. Colin Coward saying he thought Russell was klay Thompson with no defense. and he thinks Russell is going to score 20 points a game. and he's long. well thanks for the troll last week you were saying the Lakers needed to trade Russell because he was immature.



So for us to be sitting here with our best player traded. which was basically a number two pick to Sean Marks and the nets who had no 1st round draft picks. and now all the super teams being formed and Lebron maybe joining up with Chris Paul and Melo. why try to put yourself in a super team mix. that you had no business trying to get involved with. when we had our own super team here.


LONZO BALL DEANGELO RUSSELL BRANDON INGRAM JULIUS RANDLE and IVICIA ZUBAC.

[Crooked-I]

The Jazz traded up to pick #13 for the #24 and Trey freakin Lyles who doesn't even play. D'lo is easily worth the 10-14th pick. But picks 8-9 were Frank and DSJ which I can see teams rejecting D'lo because they like those 2 players better. But after them there was a huge drop off in talent.

[Penberthy]

Of course Russell is worth a top 12 pick, just cause the reports said they were calling with that offer doesn't mean that the entire deal would've been just DLo for Russell.

Lakers got the 27th pick and were able to dump Mozgov. if someone with the 12th wanted to dump a contract like Mozgov you better believe it would've cost them more than some 15 spot drop.

Its eye-opening I agree.

What details do you think were left out? I thats the case, its pretty deceptive writing if you ask me https://lakeshowlife.com/2017/06/20/lakers-rumors-dallas-mavericks-turned-deal-dangelo-russell/

Read on Twitter

[Dloading99]

This organization really forgets how much of a great player Deangelo was. Deangelo played in a game the day his Grandmother passed away and scored the game winning shot. he didn't have to play that game. but he played with his teammates and won. they all talk about non professionalism. What Deangelo did on the last game of the season was beyond professionalism. I think the front office forgets and they just think about the player. but the actual Deangelo has been going through a lot this season and off season he was very close to his grand mother so there's been a lot of things going on for him. and basketball might not have been the number one focus. but he should've been allowed to be himself. and he should've been given the benefit of the doubt. The guy gave a lot to the organization.

[Dloading99]

Deangelo really made Jordan Clarksons game easier. and you could tell those two were working on their game together. the DLo off season thread. you would see him at the practice facility. but you would think that magic would really mentor this guy and show him what he could do with all of his ability.

[RingsDontLie]

It's a wake up call for D'angelo I think. Guy is a gifted player but needs to improve his overall approach and ask himself what the word "pro" in professional basketball player means. You see big CEOs fired all the time for their behavior. It's not just about on the court results, it's about how you interact with the people you work with, how you treat them, and how they respond to you. In this case, D'angelo's off court behavior and locker room issues made trading him easier. I do hope he does become an All Star. I still feel trading him was a mistake. Trading him sure isn't going to help us next season.

[Dloading99]

You got that right. Cause Deangelo Could get them Buckets. when he was on the court I was always like we can win. cause you just would see his ability to score. you just knew he was going to score.

[dockingsched]

Of course Russell is worth a top 12 pick, just cause the reports said they were calling with that offer doesn't mean that the entire deal would've been just DLo for Russell.

Lakers got the 27th pick and were able to dump Mozgov. if someone with the 12th wanted to dump a contract like Mozgov you better believe it would've cost them more than some 15 spot drop.

Its eye-opening I agree.

What details do you think were left out? I thats the case, its pretty deceptive writing if you ask me

So let's think this through, assuming Russell isn't worth the 12th, but obviously worth more than 27, where would you have placed his value in terms of 1st round draft slot, 20th? 14th? 25th?

[Penberthy]

Lou williams could score too...

[Danny Darko]

Deangelo really made Jordan Clarksons game easier. and you could tell those two were working on their game together. the DLo off season thread. you would see him at the practice facility. but you would think that magic would really mentor this guy and show him what he could do with all of his ability.

minor point for a guy who has his nickname as a username and talks about him in every post he makes:
It's not Deangelo. It's D'Angelo (it's on every post in the thread btw).

Also what the heck? They were so bad together outside of really 1 or two games that they were statistically the worst backcourt combo on the lakers. Even Luke said this in an interview:

''Well, individually, they both made in my opinion (a) great go throughout the season,'' Walton said. ''But, for whatever reason you know, the two of them on the court together when we've tried hasn't statistically been very good for us.

http://us.blastingnews.com/sports/2017/03/luke-walton-to-keep-starting-jordan-clarkson-alongside-dangelo-russell-001566493.html

So then you say D'angelo was such a good shooter and you knew he could always just score and yet league average last year was .457 and D'Angelo shot .405. He was worse than average by a decent margin.

Now I'm guessing he has a break out season and I hope he has a good career and is actually cheered by Brooklyn instead of being booed before he even plays a game, but man please stop with revisionist rose colored glasses posts about the guy. It sounds like those Lin apologies from a Lin fans who can never live in objective reality.

[Dloading99]

We off it. I've had great propping posts about Lonzo Ball and Brooke Lopez. I was just pointing out accurate stats and points about DLO Deangelo. anyways like I said there were times him and Jordan played great together the Golden state warriors games they won.

and of course there were games where both had to have the ball. and Clarkson would chuck shots. they couldn't play together and I thought Clarkson would be moved before him.

but to trade a guy you drafted number two after two seasons when he just averaged 15 and 5 is just stupid. you can't ignore his skill set especially since that is what is emphasized in the NBA. and he's shown ability to do that.

Simple as this you need guys to score and score a lot Russell can do that. Mid range from three at the rim in the post. any one who watches analyzes basketball will tell you that. he won the jerry west award in college. the guy is a great scoring guard.

I've seen teams score from the perimeter with great scoring guards and I've seen guys traded and get it together have you ever heard of Mike Bibby? how did he do against the Lakers from the Sacramento kings. so to ignore what a player brings to the team you traded him from is just dumb.


When he's on the court for the Lakers they have a better chance of winning. his game is smooth and he opens up scoring opportunity's for other teammates.


Lonzo will do great. and so will DLO.

[TheRealKaboom]

We off it. I've had great propping posts about Lonzo Ball and Brooke Lopez. I was just pointing out accurate stats and points about DLO Deangelo. anyways like I said there were times him and Jordan played great together the Golden state warriors games they won.

So it's Brooke Lopez and Deangelo? OK cool. Can we also go with L'Onzo Ball going forward?

[Kilroy]

Of course Russell is worth a top 12 pick, just cause the reports said they were calling with that offer doesn't mean that the entire deal would've been just DLo for Russell.

Lakers got the 27th pick and were able to dump Mozgov. if someone with the 12th wanted to dump a contract like Mozgov you better believe it would've cost them more than some 15 spot drop.

Its eye-opening I agree.

What details do you think were left out? I thats the case, its pretty deceptive writing if you ask me

So let's think this through, assuming Russell isn't worth the 12th, but obviously worth more than 27, where would you have placed his value in terms of 1st round draft slot, 20th? 14th? 25th?

That's the problem though... It certainly seems like this community vastly over-rated D'Lo's value... So maybe we lack the perspective to place a realistic value on him..

You know I'm not Russell's biggest fan, but even I'm surprised we couldn't at least get slightly higher picks in return for him.

Personally, I don't see why Dallas wouldn't give up #9 for him... I would have put him somewhere around 9 in this draft... But I'm clearly wrong.

So obviously people around the league had a much lower opinion of Russell than we did.