D’Angelo Russell – To Play or Not To Play

D’Angelo Russell isn’t getting enough minutes… and he isn’t at fault for it.

The Lakers’ meltdown on social media has been rather enjoyable for many neutrals, but some of the consequences of Kobe’s selfishness and Byron Scott’s ineptitude have been rather sad. One victim has been D’Angelo Russell, the player selected with the second pick, who has barely played. Scott instead gives those minutes to guys like Marcelo Huertas and the largely ineffective Kobe Bryant, who is shooting a pathetic 31 percent from the field. Despite Kobe’s brick laying, the team is actually slightly better offensively with him on the court (100.7 O Rating to 98.4). The Lakers need to be looking at the bigger picture however: Russell is supremely talented with the ball in his hands, and they need to find a way to accommodate him before his potential is wasted.

Statistically, there isn’t an awful lot of evidence for Russell to play. The team has better net ratings when he is on the bench, and the effective field goal percentage rises which suggests they are taking higher-percentage shots and making them when he isn’t there to disrupt any kind of rhythm. Realistically, the differences are minimal however, and this is a really bad team anyway, so they shouldn’t look too deeply into such statistics. Russell is turnover prone too; no Laker turns the ball over more often and a fair few are playing more minutes than him. There is no other reason for this than the fact that he is young and playing in a really bad offensive system (I use the term system loosely). The Lakers jack up a lot of three-point shots despite only having one good three-point shooter, and this is probably why they sit 29^th in offensive efficiency and 27^th in effective field goal percentage. Russell is in a really bad situation on the court, and it’s hard to use any kind of statistics to justify why he shouldn’t be playing.

Byron Scott is a relatively knowledgeable guy (not joking), but he doesn’t seem to be playing to Russell’s strengths. The former Buckeye thrives in the pick-and-roll game and at getting to the basket to draw fouls and to finish with ease inside the paint. Scott is running a jump-shooting offense so D’Angelo has only attempted 21 layups as opposed to 131 jump shots. This shows that the former Pelicans coach, who once made Chris Paul into an elite point guard, has absolutely no clue how to use variety in his offense. Russell is making an acceptable 37 percent of his jump shots whilst boasting a 32 percent number from downtown, so it’s clear that he isn’t the problem.

Scott also doesn’t give Russell a variety of lineups to work with; he has played nearly all of his NBA time in a five-man squad containing himself, Jordan Clarkson, Kobe Bryant, Roy Hibbert and Julius Randle. Whilst in this five, Russell doesn’t get much of the ball and as a result of this, the team shoots badly from downtown, turns the ball over often and fails to get assisted buckets. This changes when Russell isn’t paired with Kobe; his 2^nd most common lineup is with Metta World Peace instead of the Hall of Famer and in this lineup, Russell turns the ball over less, sees more action and gets to run the offense. What I am getting at is Kobe is the problem as he cannot effectively share the floor with D’Angelo Russell. He still thinks the team is his and this will hamper Russell’s on-floor development.

Kobe should take a page from Kevin Garnett’s book. He realizes he isn’t his old self so he limits himself to 15 minutes and does most of his work off the court. Russell is the future of this team, he will be a tremendous player and at the age of 19, he already has a lot of maturity. This is shown by the fact he hasn’t made a single negative comment on the absolute mess that is unfolding around him. This team is bad anyway, so they should just give him minutes; using advanced stats to suggest a 19-year-old shouldn’t play is absolutely nonsensical.