Ben wrote:GutUNC wrote:Arsenal wrote:Look, I'm not saying he's going to be as good, but getting a 22 year old D'Lo right now is probably the closest thing to getting a 22 year old James Harden. Check the comparison of their age 22 stats below. Keep in mind D'Lo had to carry his team as the 1st option while Harden was the 3rd or 4th option in OKC then.
http://bkref.com/tiny/KQcNL
I understand you're not making an apples:apples comparison between Harden and Russell but I look at those numbers and see a player (Harden) who's significantly better across the board so I don't know what the analogy is supposed to prove.
VDT wrote:D' Angelo and his shooting is getting overrated here. In his four years in the league he has shot 35%,35%, 32% and 37%. Granted last year he shot more than any other year (but not that much more) but one has to wonder whether this year (like last year) was just an outlier or he has really improved his shooting. Mind you his ft shooting has stayed the same throughout the years with yearly percentages of 74%, 78%, 74%, 78% in chronological order. Not only there is no improvement but his actual percentages are not those of an elite shooter which would be around 90%.
The overrating is happening partly because folks are looking just at last year rather than at Russell's cumulative stats. If one does the Harden-Russell comparison on their cumulative stats at age 22, the comparison looks less favorable:
http://bkref.com/tiny/5fJgrAdvanced stats far worse across the board.
One of the things that made Harden elite even coming out of college was his ability to draw fouls and get to the line. 7.7 FTA/game as a college sophomore is just outstanding, as is a collegiate 61.8% career true shooting percentage for a guard. Ability to get to the line (as with ability to rebound) tends to translate pretty well from college to the pros. Russell hasn't shown anything like that ability, which is one major reason why the comparison's inapt. (I'm not commenting one way or the other on Harris for Russell. I badly wanted Russell for the Sixers when he was coming out of college.)
No doubt Harden has a major advantage because of his FT rate. Russell will never come close to that, although he still has room to improve his own FT rate significantly. That is untapped upside potential.
Overall you have to keep in mind that Russell played on straight garbage teams, and also came in as a 19 year old. OTOH Harden came in as a 20 year old and played on stacked teams from the jump. That is a big factor for the difference in efficiency.
Again I'm not trying to say he'll be as good as Harden, but he's a 22 year old scoring guard who has already made an all-star team. Those guys don't come around often. We'll see how close he gets as he improves over the next several years.
However comparisons to Harden notwithstanding, Russell is significantly more valuable than Tobias.