When the Los Angeles Lakers acquired D’Angelo Russell last year, he was deemed the explosive, offensive-minded point guard that the team needed.
While Russell’s play can be up and down, when he is clicking offensively, the Lakers’ offense goes to another level. Since a tough shooting month in December, the 27-year-old is on a heater and the hope that this persists through the postseason.
Coming off a 30-point performance against the New Orleans Pelicans, head coach Darvin Ham believes that everyone constantly encouraging Russell to be aggressive has played a role in this recent surge, which has been much-needed for the Lakers.
“It’s just all of us encouraging him to be decisive and deliberate and aggressive. As I’ve been mentioning, I think I mentioned it before this game, those stretches, we needed all of that. I told him he saved our ass a little bit and in his own humble way, he credited his teammates as well. Everybody stepped up and had a big game, I don’t know when the last time we had a starting five here that all had 20-plus points,” Ham said.
“But he spearheaded that. Just his energy, his shot aggressiveness, all of that was on point. His teammates were looking for him andI give freedom. So some of the walkups, once he has it going, him, Bron has his stretches and AR, AD, whoever, Rui, we try to find those guys and we encourage those guys to stay aggressive. That definitely was the case with DLo tonight.”
In December, it would have been easy for Russell to become discouraged, especially after getting benched due to his rough patch. However, Ham credits him being engaged and continuing to work on his game.
“I think a lot of times, people think you’re full of ‘ish when you’re telling them we have enough in the locker room, we just need to get healthy and get whole. The way he’s been playing, the way he started off the year, he hit a little tough patch. Every NBA player goes through that, especially when you’re a scorer in this league, you’re gonna hit a drought every now and again. But to his credit, he kept working on his game, kept working through it. I know I’ve encouraged him to stay aggressive, be aggressive,” Ham said.
“Asking him ways I can help him orchestrate what’s going on out there. He’s calling stuff, we’re doing playcalling back and forth between Bron, him, myself, Phil Handy, AR, we’re all just trying to make sure we stay organized. I give him the freedom and he’ll look at me and give the thumbs up, letting me know he’s got something or a play planned out already when there’s a dead ball and someone is shooting a free throw. So just giving him that freedom and constantly, myself, the staff, his teammates, encouraging him to stay aggressive,” he continued.
“I think he’s in a great place. He’s a worker, so the work he’s putting in, he didn’t sulk, he didn’t implode when he was struggling a little bit. He got in the gym, before practice, after practice, before shootaround, after shootaround, just really working with Coach Micah Fraction, putting in a lot of great work and asking all the right questions in film and whatnot. You can see he just buckled down and started leaning back on his work and not feel sorry for himself,” Ham said.
Despite being heavily involved in trade rumors and up and down play, for Ham and teammates to continue to have Russell’s back is huge. Now that the deadline has passed, the former Ohio State product is playing freely and hopefully will be able to sustain it during this last stretch of the regular season.
D’Angelo Russell’s play has changed trade deadline ‘calculus’
In the days leading up to the deadline, it made sense for Russell to be on the move due in part to his contract. But, his hot play as of late changed the ‘calculus’ of the Lakers’ mentality at the deadline, which resulted in no trades.
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