Can D’Angelo Russell bounce back this year?
It’s been a tough couple years in the league for D’Angelo Russell. He snitched on one of his teammates, Nick Young, which is constantly on the mind of fans and other players. His leadership was questioned by Magic Johnson and partially because of that, he was traded to the Brooklyn Nets in order to salary dump Timofey Mozgov. Last year, he was plagued by injuries and only played in 48 games. Now, in his fourth NBA season, it’s now or never for Russell. He’s entering the final year of his contract. He’s fully healthy. Let’s look at how he’s looked so far and what he needs to improve.
In his only year in college, D’Angelo Russell was my favorite player to watch in college basketball. His passing ability and court vision were terrific. He bombed threes off the dribble and off the catch. His handle was tight and shook defenders all over the court. He seemed like the prototypical lead guard for the modern NBA game. He was a big point guard standing at 6’5. Had the pull-up ability. Had the passing ability. Was crafty at the rim. He looked like he had it all and I was ridiculously high on him coming in. He shot 41 percent from three on almost seven three point attempts a game. He gave Ohio State, 19 points, almost six boards, and five assists a game. That boy was good! Check his tape here:
But now, entering his fourth year, the hype train is gone. D-Lo hasn’t shown the same ability that he showed in college. To begin, he just isn’t as efficient a shooter. In college, he had a true shooting percentage of 57.3%. In the NBA so far, his true shooting percentage has been 51.1% for his career. Not good. At the lead guard position, shooting is probably the most valuable skill. Russell had it rough from three this past year and I expect him to regress back to the mean. It’s kind of crazy looking at Russell’s shooting numbers from this past year. About 47% of Russell’s threes were of the “Open” variety. That means that the closest defender was four to six feet away from him. On those threes, Russell shot 28.5%. That’s ridiculously low. Russell shot only 33% from those threes in his first two years in LA but that five percent difference is huge. He should regress back but he should definitely focus on improving that number.
Looking at the shooting numbers from his past three years, I think it’s fair to come to the conclusion that Russell is around a 34%-36% three point shooter. Because of the volume of attempts he puts up, this is fine. Guys like James Harden and Damian Lillard are career 36% three point shooters. However, the difference between those guys and Russell is that they get to the line A LOT. Harden gets a lot of shit for drawing fouls but it’s smart because he’s giving himself 8 to 10 free points a night. This increases their overall efficiency and vaults their true shooting up. D-Lo only averaged just under three attempts a game last year. Here lies the biggest problem in Russell’s game. He doesn’t get to the rim enough. In addition to his low free throw attempts, only 16 percent of his attempts come from the zero to three feet range at the basket. He shoots a respectable 64% from that range but it’s like he’s never there.
Three years into his career, that might just be it with Russell. His handle is good but not elite enough to get to the rim often and he’s not very athletic. Coming into the league, I thought he would be crafty enough to find ways to get there a la James Harden but he hasn’t shown that so far. To be fair to Russell, last year he was injured for almost half the year. This definitely played a role in his effectiveness. There are good reports from the Nets this summer. They say that he has been focusing on working in the gym to get his body right so that he isn’t as injury prone. It seems that some of the injury problems have happened because he wasn’t hitting the gym as hard and didn’t have the right habits. This change is encouraging to see and should definitely help him on the court.
Russell is a dumpster fire defensively so his offensive game has to be great for him to be a star. His shooting will probably be there. He should regress back this year and he shoots with pretty good volume. However, for him to take his game to the next level, he has to improve at getting to the rim. Because he’s now healthy and seems reengaged, I expect a big year from D-Lo and for him to be in the most improved player award discussion.
