iamworthy wrote:ALL HAIL wrote:dockingsched wrote:Honestly to me the issue with Russell right now is that the offense is stagnant limiting his ability to use his vision and he's surrounded by a bunch of players that prefer to ball stop and iso.
I spent the whole game watching him on and off the ball and it's so frustrating watching him get totally ignored off the ball cause Kobe or someone else going on an isolation for the millionth time and then when he does get to run the PNR everyone is standing around and either missing s good shot or not even being ready for the pass. He's gotta be so frustrated. He deserves better.
The Lakers have obviously made a conscious decision with regard to his development that it's best he be brought along as a fourth option.
Gotta love upper management.
PS: He needs to play with the ball doc, even if he isn't being aggressive. The Lakers are grooming him as a PG, and, like you said, he'll almost never see the ball if he doesn't bring it up the court himself.
4th option? I dont think that's what upper management wants at all. Thats why they are putting him back at the point.
I'm not sure you're counting.
He's clearly the fourth option behind Randle, Kobe, and Clarkson. Is that really even debatable?
On top of that, management signed a guy in Lou Williams who is also ahead of Russell in the pecking order.
The reality is that Russell was a one man wrecking crew last year at OSU; he had no other legitimate offensive threats on his team.
Now, when you couple the facts that he's never played PG full-time ever, and he's forced, by virtue of the roster construction, to turn down the "#1 option swag" he had last year, he's trying to find himself.
People forget (correct me if I'm wrong), Russell was only a top 20-30 prospect coming out of highschool. That whole "fake swag" isht he played up to during the draft process was only a byproduct of him having the greenlight his freshman year on a bad OSU squad. Him getting that kind of elite attention was new to him.
Because he's never played PG full-time and the roster is made up of guys who will not wait for him
to find his offense, he won't be "OSU Russell" for a very, very longtime.
I like Lou Williams and Jordan Clarkson, but their too good for Russell right now. He's intimidated by all these guards on this team who have used his presence, as a #2 overall pick, to amp up their own games.
Russell's only 19, but, as we all agree, he should get substantial minutes. Regardless, both Williams and Clarkson are the ultra-aggressive types, so he'll be outshined on many, many nights.
This whole having teammates thing is really a shock to his system. He really wants to show off his dribbling skills and set up his jumper, but he's intimidated by gold jerseys.