Same. He'll never be a starter on a winning team but I expected him to be way worse.
Kemba has done even better than I imagined, still not the type of PG I want any part of though
Kemba has done even better than I imagined, still not the type of PG I want any part of though
That's definitely Kemba's best position
Recently, yeah. Nothing to really gain.
From One Russell To Another?
D’Angelo Russell wasn’t supposed to blow up this quickly.
Coming out of high school just a year ago, the conventional wisdom on the 6'5 shooting guard was that he had all the potential in the world, but that he lacked the overwhelming size or elite athleticism of some of his contemporaries. Don’t be surprised, it was said, if he takes a couple of years to reach that lofty upside.
And this past fall, when the preseason All-Big-Ten team was announced, Russell didn’t get a single vote. At the time, Ohio State was returning three senior starters from the previous year’s team — Shannon Scott, Sam Thompson and Amir Williams —so Russell was expected to spend his freshman year as an understudy, gaining experience for what surely lied ahead.
Once the games started, though, it was apparent early on that Russell was the Buckeyes’ best player, and their best chance of staying competitive in the Big Ten. Coach Thad Matta, to his credit, adjusted quickly — abandoning the plan develop Russell, and, before long, centering the entire OSU offense around him, with or without the ball. By the end of the season, the guy who had been overlooked in the preseason was one of two freshman — along with Jahlil Okafor — honored as a first-team All-American.
The challenge for whatever team drafts Russell?
Pinpointing why, exactly, he was able to outperform his recruiting pedigree, and figuring how to best apply his skill set in the NBA. Ideally, you don’t draft a guard in the Top 5 to be a role player — you want someone who can carry your offense; a building block for your franchise.
Matta, one of the best coaches in the college game, usually does a good job of spreading the floor for his best players. Whether it’s Evan Turner, Jared Sullinger, or Russell, Ohio State has always worked best when it centers complimentary role players around an established star, freeing him to dominate the ball and create offense both for himself and his teammates.
What made Russell so effective at Ohio State was his ability to take whatever the defense gave him. He is the rare freshman with no significant holes in his game, able to rise-and-fire off of screens, create his own shot off the dribble, attack the rim, run the pick-and-roll, and find the open man when the defense collapses on him.
Quite simply, there is very little a defender with comparable size and athleticism can do to slow Russell down. At the NCAA level, defenders had to choose what they would give him, and, without fail, Russell would take advantage no matter what strategy they deployed.
If Russell has a weakness in his offensive game, it’s what happens when he matches up against guys who are bigger, faster and longer than him. Playing on the wing in the Big Ten, that was rarely an issue, but if he’s going to be a primary option at the next level, he’ll be facing excellent perimeter defenders on a nightly basis. Schemes will be designed specifically to slow him down and make him uncomfortable. In that respect, his struggles against Arizona in the second round of the NCAA Tournament are somewhat of a red flag. Going up against Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Stanley Johnson, two of the longest and most athletic defenders he faced all season, Russell was held to 9 points on just 3-of-19 shooting.
At 6'7, 215 with a 7'1 wingspan, Hollis-Jefferson is an elite athlete with the length and quickness to match up with multiple positions on the perimeter. He may fall in the draft because of his inability to shoot 3-pointers, but he has prototypical athleticism for an NBA defender, and he hounded Russell all over the court. He got right in Russell’s airspace, challenged Russell to beat him off the dribble, and refused to allow any uncontested shots. The only real success Russell had against Arizona came from drawing defensive attention and creating shots for others, as reflected in his 6-to-1 assist-turnover ratio.
Russell’s perceived lack of athleticism really showed itself on the defensive side of the ball this year — he was one of the weak spots on an otherwise solid Ohio State defense. Playing next to Sam Thompson and Shannon Scott, he was rarely asked to cover the best perimeter players on the other team. The Buckeyes hid Russell on defense in many of the same ways that Portland hides Damian Lillard (with Nic Batum and Wesley Matthews) and Houston hides James Harden (with Patrick Beverley and Trevor Ariza). You can see that in his advanced statistics — he had very few possessions as the primary defender in isolation, and he wasn’t terribly effective against spot-up shooters or in the pick-and-roll.
In trying to find the best fit for Russell at the next level, the team that drafts him is going to want to prevent him from matching up with too many 6'7+ athletes like Hollis-Jefferson. This pretty much rules out the prospect of counting on him as a primary offensive option in the NBA, at least for now. A pretty safe rule for guys drafted to be primary options is they should have a size, speed and length advantage over their defenders at the next level. The best players in the NBA can get around any type of defender, but to maximize their production, you want to make that as easy as possible on a nightly basis.
Seven years ago, matchup concerns made the Oklahoma City Thunder act boldly. They drafted UCLA shooting guard Russell Westbrook — a player who faced similar issues as Russell did coming out of high school, and now college — and moved him to the point. For the team that selects the latter in the NBA Draft this June, it’s a strategy that would be wise to emulate.
To be sure, Russell is nowhere near the type of athlete that Westbrook is, and he plays a dramatically different style of basketball. Nevertheless, he would still benefit from the same type of mismatch as a pro. The 6'5 Russell can use his size and his length to score over the top of a 6'2 PG much more easily than if he were matched up against a 6'6 SG.
His extra length will also help Russell compensate for a lack of speed on defense, and it can have a multiplier effect when playing with long teammates at the other positions. Looking at all the starting point guards in the NBA, there’s a noticeable trend: more and more teams are trying to mimic the Thunder with a big, young point guard.
An NBA floor general has to be able to control tempo, run the offense and get his teammates the ball in their favorite spots on the floor — all while managing the balance between keeping himself hot and creating for others, and defending one of the deepest positions in the league. There are no nights off for a starting PG in the NBA, and they have a ton of responsibility on both sides of the ball.
Not every NCAA combo guard can manage this transition. The Orlando Magic tried a similar experiment with Victor Oladipo, and appear to have abandoned the plan just one season in. They drafted Elfrid Payton in the lottery last summer, and Oladipo played the point about half as much as he did in his rookie year.
The good news for anyone looking to try Russell at the point is that he basically already played there for Ohio State, even though he was technically listed as a wing. He could lean on Shannon Scott when it came to bringing up the ball, calling plays and initiating the offense, but he was still the Buckeyes second-leading assist man, and he had the responsibility of demanding defensive attention and creating shots for everyone else in the half-court.
One quick and dirty way to measure whether an NCAA guard can handle running point in the NBA is to look at their assist-to-turnover ratio, as it doesn’t matter how good a passer you are if you can’t take care of the basketball. In that regard, Russell rates ahead of many of his combo guard peers during their final season of college.
If there’s another reason to be optimistic about Russell’s ability to hold down the point at the next level, it comes from the success of two of the more surprising rookies from this year’s class — Zach LaVine and Jordan Clarkson. LaVine (6'6 180 with a 6'8 wingspan) and Clarkson (6'5 185 with a 6'8 wingspan) were both NCAA combo guards who outperformed their draft position in no small part because their NBA teams played them on the ball, where they could leverage their size. All three guys share the ability to shoot over the top of smaller defenders, and the ball-handling and quickness to get penetration on anyone pressing up to take away the shot.
For me, the idea to play Russell at the point really solidified while LaVine took on Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors in one of the last games of the regular season. The Warriors have the No. 1 rated defense in the NBA and they have shut down PG’s all season, but they had no real answer for LaVine, who went off for 37 points on 20 shots. There was nothing too complicated about what he was doing, either; he simply dribbled into an open jumper against Curry whenever he wanted.
If you need more convincing, consider Michael Carter-Williams, who isn’t as good a shooter a LaVine, but he did a similar thing to Derrick Rose in Game 5 of the Milwaukee Bucks first-round series against the Chicago Bulls, repeatedly getting into the paint and finishing over the top of the much shorter Rose.
As a point guard, Russell has one big, big edge over LaVine and Clarkson — he’s already a much, much better passer. Those two might end up as shooting guards yet — the Minnesota Timberwolves are still committed to Ricky Rubio while the Los Angeles Lakers may end up pursuing Rajon Rondo in free agency. And if LaVine and Clarkson are playing at SG, most of their size advantage goes away. The problem for Carter-Williams, on the other hand, is his jumper — which is one of Russell’s strengths. That’s what makes Russell such a special prospect — not many 6'5 guards project to be high-level passers, scorers and shooters.
Even in a best-case scenario, Russell is likely to be in for a long rookie campaign. Even Westbrook struggled in his first few seasons as a PG before he got the hang of things. Dante Exum, another super-sized PG, looked completely lost in his first season as an NBA player.
That said, when you watch Russell make passes like these, you can’t help but wonder what magic he could unleash if he plays with the ball in his hands for 35+ minutes a night at the next level.
Whoever drafts Russell should do so with the goal of developing him over a three to four year window, with expectation that he will be ready to compete by the end of his rookie deal. At that point, Russell will only be 23 years old, and if his team uses his learning years to build around him with enough size, athleticism, and shooting, it will have a big, effective perimeter rotation headed up by one of the biggest, most skilled point guards in the league.
