D'Angelo Russell
Los Angeles Lakers

Player Facts

Height: 6'3"
Weight: 193lbs.

Wingspan: 6'9.75"

Date of Birth: Feb. 23, 1996
College Experience: Ohio State (1 year)

Selections

All Star: 1
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 7
Physical Strength: 5
Positional Size: 7
Positional Wingspan: 9
Paint Scoring: 8
Midrange Scoring: 8
Three-Point Scoring: 8
Dribbling: 9
Passing: 9
Perimeter Defense: 3
Interior Defense: 4
Rebounding: 6

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JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> P&R Shot Creation

> Scoring Versatility

> Attacking the Cup

> Role Interchangeability

> Defensive Communication

> Ugly On-Ball Defense

> Disinterested Defense

> Turnover Tendencies

> Offensive Negatives

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

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*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

The first eye-catching thing about D'Angelo Russell is his flashy offensive game. DLo also possesses a near-6'10" wingspan and gifted court vision. The smooth southpaw is a high-level passer and shooter, making him a helpful guard despite his defensive warts.

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P&R Shot Creation

Hand him the keys to a spread pick-and-roll offense and good things will happen. Russell is tailor-made to shred teams here with deep range and prolific playmaking. From a scoring outlook, his ability to stick his man behind him and maintain an advantage is uncanny.

Russell uses his nasty lefty pull-up to set up his passing game in pick-and-rolls. 2023-2024 saw him provide 5.4 points per contest on his pull-up jumpers. This knotted him with another guard strong in this area - Immanuel Quickley.

He gets rid of the ball quickly when trapped up high for instance. When examining his play as the initiator here, he is a pure point guard in this sense. D'Angelo can see over several of his guard defenders and generally does a good job surveying the floor after a ball screen.

He leads his dive-man to the hole with the best of them. He has made the jobs of bigs from Jarrett Allen to Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Davis very simple on the back end of a play. His far-out lobs in particular are quite remarkable in their accuracy.

While his raw assist totals are good, examining his assist points created figures provides a fuller picture of his table-setting. Russell's lump sum of 1193 for 2023-2024 outdid the respective volumes of Cade Cunningham, Tyrese Maxey, and De'Aaron Fox.

D'Angelo sucks in defenders with his craftiness as an attacker. He puts on a head-fake, ball-fake, and general patience clinic in his opportunities here. Based on the defensive alignment, Russell will snap crossbody lasers to shooters, silky pocket passes to rollers, and anything in between.

DLo is also a great standstill passer. He can make high-level reads and use phenomenal touch to float balls directly into his teammates' hands. These value-adding finds can often lead to layups for others in the half-court or on the delayed break.

Scoring Versatility

He brings some scoring value at all three levels. His three-point prowess is well-documented, but he will operate in the midrange as well. Just like how he decelerates nicely on his dribble drives, Russell slows into the midrange beautifully off the ball screen. He made over half of his midrange takes in 2023-2024 on substantial volume.

He's a capable isolation option at point guard and an overall tough shot-maker. DLo has no problem getting his shot off against length, nor does he need much space to fire. During his second Lakers stint, this is not a huge part of his job description, but as a ball-handler it is still valuable to have.

The one-on-one prowess of D'Angelo becomes infinitely more valuable when the game is on the line. He stays calm and concentrated in the heat of crunch time.

His scoring capabilities cover nearly every spot in the half-court, giving him the confidence to knock down whatever shot is available. He has also piled up quite a number of clutch moments throughout his career, particularly in his younger days with even more offensive responsibility.

Attacking the Cup

Without crazy burst, Russell uses a tight handle in conjunction with pace-changing on drives. His most commonly used move is probably the in-and-out dribble with his left. DLo is one of the most talented guards at stringing together moves smoothly and effectively, with a deep bag of counters.

In 2023-2024 he drove 7.1 times a game, many via handoffs, and it led to a free throw attempt per game here alone. He ends a lot of these drives with runners too. Being 6'3"/6'4" with a plus wingspan and large hands helps him get these off continually.

The Ohio State product has improved his finishing ability as he's matured. 2023-2024 saw him hit on 69.5% of his looks at the rim. He loves the inside-hand lefty lay-in on the right side to cap off a shifty drive.

Role Interchangeability

A team can comfortably play D'Angelo next to another point guard or a ball-dominant wing. His relocation ability and off-ball movement are good enough to unlock his flammable catch-and-shoot ability. With Draymond Green, Stephen Curry, and LeBron James as running mates over the years, Russell has killed opponents as a shooter.

DLo was up over 43% on his catch-and-shoots from distance in 2023-2024. He placed in the NBA's 90th percentile as a spot-up marksman this year. Fortunately, he has benefitted more and more from these looks as he plays around more talented teammates over the years.

Defensive Communication

While still not a clear positive on the ball, as he's matured Russell has increasingly become a better communicator on defense.

He helps instruct his teammates where to be, reminding them to adhere to the team's defensive schemes/principles. It's hard to quantify this but it becomes apparent when watching his film through the years, ultimately tacking on some additional value to him as a player.

WEAKNESSES

Ugly On-Ball Defense

DLo has just a pedestrian steals rate despite soaking up tons of minutes on the perimeter defensively. With that size and length at the one, he'd become a far more useful piece on this end with greater effort and more active hands. The tools are there to be a disruptor and defensive playmaker, he just needs to tap into them further.

Save for having a dash of switchability with that size/length, his man defense is flat-out bad. Virtually no advanced defensive metric is a fan of D'Angelo on this end.

Watching game film confirms the struggles with easy blow-bys taking place all too frequently. During his Warriors stint in 2019-2020, Russell gave up a nearly unfathomable 1.50 points per possession on isolations, placing in the 1st percentile leaguewide. More recently, he continues to put up firmly negative advanced defensive metrics such as defensive box plus-minus (DBPM) (negative every season of his career through 2023-2024).

His screen navigation is also subpar. The same effort-based issues bog down what could be serviceable point-of-attack work at his size.

In his dozen games with Minnesota following the 2020 trade deadline, DLo was in the 8th percentile defending pick-and-roll ball-handlers. The per-game frequency of these sequences was non-trivial, with a 2.7 average defensive possessions mark that aligned with Kawhi Leonard and Brandon Ingram.

Disinterested Defense

The full spectrum of Russell's on-ball woes put his team in a difficult predicament. His weaknesses command that he be flanked by strong defensive wings. As for D'Angelo himself, he's relegated to monitoring shooters which can even still prove challenging for him.

When he's defending off-ball, which is often, Russell can lose sight of his man on cuts and curls. Moreover, he'll take multiple steps inward to help in instances where he should not. D'Angelo can get pulled in from the strongside corner, an NBA cardinal sin that can leave a skilled shooter with the wide-open look.

Turnover Tendencies

With his boldness as a playmaker, D'Angelo inevitably throws some passes that end up going the other way. Some of these cough-ups are both expected and understandable though.

What is largely inexcusable about a high-usage lead guard is such a poor assist-to-turnover ratio. He has done well to clean this issue up over the years however it can still be viewed as a relative weakness within his game.

Offensive Negatives

It is abundantly clear that Russell heavily favors his left hand at the iron à la Kelly Oubre. This inclination is so strong to the point that he'll take some very awkward-looking lefty layups to avoid using the right. He could also look to be more aggressive with regards to shooting at the rim and seeking out contact.

His over-reliance on his dominant hand plus the fact that he's not the strongest or most vertically explosive guard leaves some room for improvement inside the paint. On a frequency level, he could and should be getting to the iron more. As a side note, Russell is not the transition killer that the game's zippiest guards can be.

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In high school, Russell was teammates with future NBAers Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid at Montverde Academy