Lakers: D’Angelo Russell Still Has Room for Improvement

Turning The Tables

At 2.4 turnovers per game, D’Angelo Russell ties with Ricky Rubio and Elfrid Payton for 74th among all point guards.

However, both Rubio and Payton average over a full assist per turnover more than D’Angelo’s 1.41.

In other words, as a primary ball-handler, D’Angelo Russell still has a ways to go in terms of making better decisions with the basketball.

Of course, the poor assist-to-turnover ratio isn’t entirely Russell’s fault. His teammates will have to shoulder some of the blame for that as well.

You don’t even need a stat to back this one up.

Consider the number of times a game you see D’Angelo run the pick and roll and hit his big with a perfect pocket pass as the big pops out into some open floor-space.

Now consider the number of times his teammate misses that wide open shot due to a lack of shooting skills.

I’ll wait while you try to remember them all; it happens a lot.

If the Lakers could get Russell a big who is an offensive threat out of the pick and roll — much like Rubio has in Anthony-Towns — D’Angelo would certainly be able to average more assists per game, thereby improving upon his assist to turnover ratio dramatically.

Also, seeing a high number of turnovers per game isn’t necessarily the worst thing for a rookie point-guard learning the intricacies of an NBA offense.

If anything, it can serve as an indication that he’s willing to take chances with the ball. As long as Russell can learn what works and what doesn’t work from those turnovers, he’s on a good path for improvement.

At the end of the day, though, Russell really will need to work on consistently making better reads in the offense.

He’s got great vision for such a young age, now he just needs to learn the finer points of passing against NBA length.

Next: Conditioning