Sixers Science Investigation: D'Angelo Russell
Full disclosure: I am not a D'Angelo Russell fan. I do my best to eschew bias and evaluate him objectively. That is why I structure the player investigations a certain way, to avoid bias -- for example, when I stopped putting GIFs because there's not enough time to post every clip to avoid cherrypicking ones that make them look good/bad. There's always selection bias. The newly-minted primary scorer for the Brooklyn Nets, D'Angelo Russell.
Previous Sixers Science Investigations can be found on the Sixers Science website page HERE.
Let's start off basic:
Of all the minutes the Lakers played during the 2016-17 regular season, Russell was on the floor for 45% of them. While he was on the floor, the Lakers were outscored by 359 points. Hypothetically, if Russell played the entire game (48 minutes), the Lakers, on average, would be 9.5 points worse than their opponent. Special Note: Last year, Russell's was one of the worst Net Floor Stat Lines I've ever seen (-11.7).
At age 20, Russell has already nearly averaged 20 points per 36 minutes, but below par 48.3 eFG% (league average: 51.4 eFG%). Converting 35.2% of your three-point-attempts is great when you average 7.6 attempts per 36. He is improving as a free-throw shooter, but needs to get to the line more often. He has a penchant for sticking with bread-and-butter, the jump shot. Adding an ability to drive to the basket will be a crucial factor in determining his future.
Admittedly, I've been sleeping on the job by not including the Per 100 possession stats in previous investigations -- so here you are! What sticks out? Turnovers are high, assists are improving, needs to bump up 2P%, or shoot more 3s, dRtg doesn't bode well.
Looking at his Advanced/Shooting stats, his TS% is pretty darn low, mostly attributed to his lack of getting to the line, and shooting a decent number of 2s at a low percentage. His Win Shares is clearly in the canner considering he played for the lowly Lakers coached by the likes of Byron Scott and Luke Walton. Look at the lineups he spent the most time with:
So, regardless of him playing the SG or PG, they were pretty bad. One bright spot last year, was the 0.07 net positive lineup that played 402 minutes, with Mozgov and Deng! Any lineup that needed Russell to run the show was doomed. The smorgasbord of a rookie Ingram, a borderline offensive black hole Jordan Clarkson, the inability to space the floor Randle, rookie Zubac, or Swaggy P is not conducive to success, so I don't give Russell the sole blame in his lack of efficiency.
I would almost classify this as a chucker's shot chart. The entire arc is lit up like a Christmas tree who's family bought too many red lights. Misses from inside, misses from mid-range, and a ton of misses from three.
These are inefficient scorers (less than 42 FG%) who had the most three-point misses per 36 minutes. Covington is a fan favorite, but we must admit he had a very poor shooting year (but did vastly improve as the season went on). Russell still needs two more seasons of data before we get a reliable statistic measure of how good he is as a shooter, but I don't think it will help that he's tasked with being Brooklyn's primary weapon.
Russell played 11% of his minutes last year at the 2, and the rest at PG. This is significant because the previous year he played 71% of his minutes at the 2 guard, and I'll let you in on a little secret, it didn't end well (depending on how much you like Brandon Ingram). It's very hard to conclude a statistically discernible difference between his impact at each position considering the small sample size of time at the 2, but if we extrapolate from the previous year in which he played a ton of minutes at that position, we can see he's probably better suited at the 1. He's been quoted as saying he prefers to play the 2 to the 1.
Note: A spot-up is defined as any possession where the ball is passed to you on the perimeter (not coming off of a screen & not a dump off) and you end the possession by catching & shooting, pulling up, shooting a floater, or driving the rim. This includes kick outs or any other time you're passed the ball not off of a pin-down, flare screen, or other off-ball actions.
Our next visual is from talented NBA Data guru Jacob Goldstein (who will appear on next podcast) made a shot-making efficiency metric, that dates back to 1979. It predicts someone's expected TS%, and then looks at what they actually made, generating percentiles that show you someone's ability to score, taking volume and efficiency with equal consideration.
Yikes! He actually declined in his sophomore season, getting slightly easier shots but not improving efficiency. Looking through thousands of results in this model, I can safely say that as long as he's below 40-percentile in Jacob's metric, he will never sniff an all-star game. The good news, he is only 20-years-old and could have up to 7 years before his prime even begins. I am only evaluating what he's done so far. For people who think this is a hit article, read this paragraph over and over again: I'm literally saying he could be a great player considering he still has up to 7 years before his prime even begins.
If you don't know from the other player investigations, I created a statistic that captures the effectiveness of contributions that don't hit the box score. The updated formula uses a Bayesian estimation, correlated to RAPM.
Per 36: (Screen Assists / 2) + (Deflections) + (Inverse Defensive FG% plus-minus /1.25) + (Drawn Charges) + (Loose Balls Recovered) + (Contested Shots) + (Hockey Assists * 2.25) + (RAPM / 3)
Russell ranked 229/280 in this metric, so most of his exploits are captured in the box score, which is not exactly pretty.
Oh, a treat for you guys, the Synergy stats! These will be a mainstay for the rest of the player investigations, as they are one of the best insights into offensive play-type data (shoutout NBA Math). Russell spent nearly 40%(!) of his possession shooting as the Pick-and-Roll Ball Handler position, you may ask: "Why doesn't this bode well?
Because 61% of players score more efficiently in isolation than they do as the PnR ball-handler.
The worse news, Russell only converts .76 points per possession on these shots, which is markedly below the NBA average. His next most frequent play type was in transition, where he wasn't great either. He was pretty good in spot-up situations, and excellent in hand-offs, so perhaps there is new (contrary) evidence that suggests he's better in off-ball situations than on-ball -- maybe I buy it. He only ranked in the 27th percentile in openness, according to Nick Sciria's model, so he's definiltey attempting a lot of contested 3s. Note: A spot-up is defined as any possession where the ball is passed to you on the perimeter (not coming off of a screen & not a dump off) and you end the possession by catching & shooting, pulling up, shooting a floater, or driving the rim. This includes kick outs or any other time you're passed the ball not off of a pin-down, flare screen, or other off-ball actions.
Film Study
- Has a quick, consistent release with solid lower-body mechanics, so I like how he projects as a three-point shooter. He can also connect off-the-dribble, which gives him the potential to be a bigger threat in the Pick-and-Roll. Only assisted on 64% of his three-point-attempts, closer to a guy like Mike Conley.
- Does little to keep man in front of him -- doesn't yet have great lateral quickness, core strength, or defensive IQ to succeed on this end of the floor.
- Overly left-hand dominant, should incorporate more right hand dribbles, drives, and finishes in his game to have a balanced scoring attack. When you don't have an elite first-step, you have to be able to go both directions.
- Excels in outlet passes, swing passes, and passing in transition, but doesn't utilize this strength enough, which mitigates its overall contribution to his game.
- Avoids contact in paint, which is not conducive to drawing foul calls or finishing with acrobatics.
- Has flashy handles, but can be loose at times, prone to turnovers.
- Overuses the left-hand hook pass, which is a hard pass to catch and frequently leads to live-ball turnovers.
- Has exhibited some end-of-game heroics suggesting he may live for the big game
- A microwave type scorer who can get really hot and score in bunches
- Evidence that there's drive to improve (won't leave practice till he makes 100 threes)
- Has the ability to change pace, snake, or put defender in jail in the PnR, but doesn't do it consistently
- Doesn't do the little things yet, like set good screens, get deflections, recover loose balls, grab contested rebounds, or boxout particularly well.
- Doesn't have great verticality or acceleration or top end speed, would dramatically improve if he could make significant strides in these areas -- and it seems he's on a good trajectory.