It's time to move on from DLO....

[Monster]

I can think of far worse things than DLO being our 5th most important starter if he sticks around. This all gets back to the growth of Ant and Jaden along with KAT being able to stay on the floor longer because he's not in foul trouble thanks to Rudy. DLO has to start deferring more to others and be more choosy about when to go get his. We'll still need him to run a heavy does of PnRs with guys and to make open J's, but he has got to cut back on the long-shot pull ups from 3 and fading mid-range 2's off the bounce.

At the same time, we can't want D'Angelo Russell to defer to others and then also be upset that he doesn't do more. He needs (and deserves) his touches too. And that stance is even stronger after acquiring an elite pick-and-roll partner for him.

I get that, but it's a mathematical fact that he isn't a very efficient scorer. I'm all for him running PnR with Rudy Gobert if it's leading to easy buckets for either one of them. What I don't want to see are off balance pulls ups or quick-trigger 3s on 2 on 1 fast breaks. We can't afford him to be taking super difficult shots unless he's absolutely forced to due to the shot clock. Let Ant, KAT, and Nowell be the primary shot makers. They're all better at it than him.

The bolded applies to more players than just D'Angelo Russell. And no, he's not the biggest offender on the team in this regard.

Also, Russell already shifted into a secondary scorer last year, did he not? He was a distant third in shot attempts last year behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, rightfully. The decrease in his usage rate speaks to it as well. We can fairly discuss his efficiency, although I expect him to bounce back here, but he's already operating in the role that you're describing here.

Right, he did sacrifice a little last year. He took one less shot per 100 possessions than KAT. That's not enough. I'd like him to lean into the role of facilitator and spot up shooter more. I'd like his usage to be below KAT, Ant, and Nowell. Even his "good" years of efficiency still aren't that good.

To me a Chris Paul type usage and FGA profile is what he should target.

In 2022 he took 13.7 shots per game. Towns took 16 shots per game during that time. Note the entire team actually took fewer shots once they took off and became the best offensive team in the league.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I can think of far worse things than DLO being our 5th most important starter if he sticks around. This all gets back to the growth of Ant and Jaden along with KAT being able to stay on the floor longer because he's not in foul trouble thanks to Rudy. DLO has to start deferring more to others and be more choosy about when to go get his. We'll still need him to run a heavy does of PnRs with guys and to make open J's, but he has got to cut back on the long-shot pull ups from 3 and fading mid-range 2's off the bounce.

At the same time, we can't want D'Angelo Russell to defer to others and then also be upset that he doesn't do more. He needs (and deserves) his touches too. And that stance is even stronger after acquiring an elite pick-and-roll partner for him.

I get that, but it's a mathematical fact that he isn't a very efficient scorer. I'm all for him running PnR with Rudy Gobert if it's leading to easy buckets for either one of them. What I don't want to see are off balance pulls ups or quick-trigger 3s on 2 on 1 fast breaks. We can't afford him to be taking super difficult shots unless he's absolutely forced to due to the shot clock. Let Ant, KAT, and Nowell be the primary shot makers. They're all better at it than him.

The bolded applies to more players than just D'Angelo Russell. And no, he's not the biggest offender on the team in this regard.

Also, Russell already shifted into a secondary scorer last year, did he not? He was a distant third in shot attempts last year behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, rightfully. The decrease in his usage rate speaks to it as well. We can fairly discuss his efficiency, although I expect him to bounce back here, but he's already operating in the role that you're describing here.

Right, he did sacrifice a little last year. He took one less shot per 100 possessions than KAT. That's not enough. I'd like him to lean into the role of facilitator and spot up shooter more. I'd like his usage to be below KAT, Ant, and Nowell. Even his "good" years of efficiency still aren't that good.

To me a Chris Paul type usage and FGA profile is what he should target.

There's no question that Karl-Anthony Towns needs to shoot more than he does, but at what point is he held accountable for that instead of his coaches and teammates? I thought he repeatedly passed up far too many quality looks last season. I also wonder what his numbers would look like if we substituted his offensive fouls with shot attempts. In any event, I'm not sure it matters. KAT is KAT and he's been that way for the majority of his career.

I think including Jaylen Nowell in that discussion is problematic, and I say that as a Nowell stan. He has one solid year off the bench primarily against reserves and now he's a higher priority in the offense than D'Angelo Russell for you? I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Those two aren't the same and shouldn't be treated as such.

Also, at what point do we acknowledge that it's flat out easier to score when you're being assisted -- versus having to create your own shot? Just 28-percent of Russell's two-point shots were assisted last year. Only Patrick Beverley ranked lower. And just 63-percent of Russell's three-point shots were assisted. Only Anthony Edwards took more unassisted threes, unsurprisingly. Basically, everyone benefits from Russell's passing, but it's not often [enough] that he's on the receiving end. This not only speaks to a partial explanation on the disparity in scoring efficiency between Russell and his teammates, but it also further illustrates to me that this roster needs more ball-handlers, shot creators.

Edit: Note that the larger explanation for Russell's unspectacular scoring efficiency is where he takes his shots and his inconsistency as a shooter, but my point still stands. An assisted bucket is easier than an unassisted bucket. They count the same, but they are NOT the same.

[FNG]

I can think of far worse things than DLO being our 5th most important starter if he sticks around. This all gets back to the growth of Ant and Jaden along with KAT being able to stay on the floor longer because he's not in foul trouble thanks to Rudy. DLO has to start deferring more to others and be more choosy about when to go get his. We'll still need him to run a heavy does of PnRs with guys and to make open J's, but he has got to cut back on the long-shot pull ups from 3 and fading mid-range 2's off the bounce.

At the same time, we can't want D'Angelo Russell to defer to others and then also be upset that he doesn't do more. He needs (and deserves) his touches too. And that stance is even stronger after acquiring an elite pick-and-roll partner for him.

I get that, but it's a mathematical fact that he isn't a very efficient scorer. I'm all for him running PnR with Rudy Gobert if it's leading to easy buckets for either one of them. What I don't want to see are off balance pulls ups or quick-trigger 3s on 2 on 1 fast breaks. We can't afford him to be taking super difficult shots unless he's absolutely forced to due to the shot clock. Let Ant, KAT, and Nowell be the primary shot makers. They're all better at it than him.

The bolded applies to more players than just D'Angelo Russell. And no, he's not the biggest offender on the team in this regard.

Also, Russell already shifted into a secondary scorer last year, did he not? He was a distant third in shot attempts last year behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, rightfully. The decrease in his usage rate speaks to it as well. We can fairly discuss his efficiency, although I expect him to bounce back here, but he's already operating in the role that you're describing here.

Right, he did sacrifice a little last year. He took one less shot per 100 possessions than KAT. That's not enough. I'd like him to lean into the role of facilitator and spot up shooter more. I'd like his usage to be below KAT, Ant, and Nowell. Even his "good" years of efficiency still aren't that good.

To me a Chris Paul type usage and FGA profile is what he should target.

Exactly. Russell showed me some improved facilitating skills last year, and I'm only hoping they will continue to improve as he looks more toward setting others up than taking inefficient shots. I also certainly want his usage far below KAT and Ant, and frankly below Rudy. Think about this- Russell scored 18.1 PPG last season, but needed 15 shot attempts per game to get there. Rudy scored 15.6 PPG, but did it on only 7.7 shot attempts...less than half as many! I get that Rudy is mostly dunking while DLo is often taking off-balance jumpers (great for a game of H-O-R-S-E, but not so great for an efficient offense), but still...who do you want taking more shots? The guy with the below average TS% of .544, or the guy with the elite percentage of .732? I have confidence that Russell can get the ball to KAT, Ant and Rudy if that is his mindset, and I'm also confident Finchie will have a playoff-like short leash if he looks to score too much.

[Monster]

I can think of far worse things than DLO being our 5th most important starter if he sticks around. This all gets back to the growth of Ant and Jaden along with KAT being able to stay on the floor longer because he's not in foul trouble thanks to Rudy. DLO has to start deferring more to others and be more choosy about when to go get his. We'll still need him to run a heavy does of PnRs with guys and to make open J's, but he has got to cut back on the long-shot pull ups from 3 and fading mid-range 2's off the bounce.

At the same time, we can't want D'Angelo Russell to defer to others and then also be upset that he doesn't do more. He needs (and deserves) his touches too. And that stance is even stronger after acquiring an elite pick-and-roll partner for him.

I get that, but it's a mathematical fact that he isn't a very efficient scorer. I'm all for him running PnR with Rudy Gobert if it's leading to easy buckets for either one of them. What I don't want to see are off balance pulls ups or quick-trigger 3s on 2 on 1 fast breaks. We can't afford him to be taking super difficult shots unless he's absolutely forced to due to the shot clock. Let Ant, KAT, and Nowell be the primary shot makers. They're all better at it than him.

The bolded applies to more players than just D'Angelo Russell. And no, he's not the biggest offender on the team in this regard.

Also, Russell already shifted into a secondary scorer last year, did he not? He was a distant third in shot attempts last year behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, rightfully. The decrease in his usage rate speaks to it as well. We can fairly discuss his efficiency, although I expect him to bounce back here, but he's already operating in the role that you're describing here.

Right, he did sacrifice a little last year. He took one less shot per 100 possessions than KAT. That's not enough. I'd like him to lean into the role of facilitator and spot up shooter more. I'd like his usage to be below KAT, Ant, and Nowell. Even his "good" years of efficiency still aren't that good.

To me a Chris Paul type usage and FGA profile is what he should target.

Exactly. Russell showed me some improved facilitating skills last year, and I'm only hoping they will continue to improve as he looks more toward setting others up than taking inefficient shots. I also certainly want his usage far below KAT and Ant, and frankly below Rudy. Think about this- Russell scored 18.1 PPG last season, but needed 15 shot attempts per game to get there. Rudy scored 15.6 PPG, but did it on only 7.7 shot attempts...less than half as many! I get that Rudy is mostly dunking while DLo is often taking off-balance jumpers (great for a game of H-O-R-S-E, but not so great for an efficient offense), but still...who do you want taking more shots? The guy with the below average TS% of .544, or the guy with the elite percentage of .732? I have confidence that Russell can get the ball to KAT, Ant and Rudy if that is his mindset, and I'm also confident Finchie will have a playoff-like short leash if he looks to score too much.

I am not good at looking these things up and I think someone has posted it before but Finch mentioned at the end of the year that they had Russell playing with the bench quite a bit. It would be interesting to see what kind of numbers he played without Towns etc. playing with more bench players would have increased his shooting and laying taking tougher shots. As a starter he was also playing with Beverly who likely handled the ball more than McDaniels will this year as a starter. Will Russell play more of his minutes with the starters this year? Will having Anderson and McLaughlin along with Nowell give the bench some playmaking and with Nowell more scoring so Russell isn't having to score and play with bench guys as much? Maybe laying with Anderson in a bench unit will get him some easy looks off the ball?

It really feels like Russell may be empowered in a good way with some of the changes that have been made. Not only will he have Gobert to throw lobs too he has McDaniels who is big and I believe cuts well off the ball. Basically the Wolves will have someone the size of Vanderbilt going to the rim as a SF in McDaniels plus the biggest Lob threat in the game. All that the Wolves will have not given up much shooting in the starting lineup. Beverly didn't shoot all that well from 3 much of the season. He literally made over half his 3's for the season in February and March. History still is on the side of Beverley being a better 3 point shooter than McDaniels this season but as Q pointed out McDaniels has shot well from the corners and he shot the 3 well overall after the calendar turned to 2022. They will miss Beasley's 3 point shooting but if they really need a shooter in a game they can throw Bryn Forbes out there and I think he might move better off the ball than Beasley did.

I would love to be playing PG for this Wolves team. Again my thinking with Russell is I think he is capable of being a guy that can facilitate and pick spots to score and he took steps last year to be better in that regard. I've said for over a year now that he needs some help in terms of coaching to help him get to the good player I envision that he can be. I believe as much in Finch when it comes to Russell as anything. I'm not sure I have said that for a while.

[FNG]

https://theathletic.com/3412054/2022/07/11/nba-players-top-125-tier-5/

Some of you may appreciate Seth Partnow, some of you may not. I'm in the group that appreciates his consistently deep dive into advanced analytics when evaluating the worth of a player. So I always look forward to his annual ranking of the top 125 players into 5 tiers, and this week he will be releasing in the Athletic his 5 tiers...beginning with the bottom tier 5 Monday and concluding with the top tier Friday This year I was most interested in where he was going to place Dlo...he had him in tier 5 last year, and with the improvement some of us noted last year, I was hoping for an upgrade. Unfortunately, it did not happen, and Russell appears in the bottom 40 of the league again. Partnow specifically calls him out, saying "Simply put, a PG of his level and experience simply can't have his volume of poor decisions with the ball at inopportune times and hope to play a key role in his team advancing deep into the playoffs".

And this is what the many of us here fear...that we are saddled with a bottom 20% max player with limited appeal to other teams. We heard reports during June about TC trying to move DLo, and it wasn't a surprise to most of us given Finchie's benching him during a critical final game against Memphis. I held some hope that once again a GM would bite on Russell like 4 others have done before, but it didn't happen, as TC was unable to find a suitable deal. So now he and Finchie are forced to go forward with a series of not very attractive options (unattractive trade, extension, or let his contract run out).

The silver lining? (since I'm still over the moon about the Gobert deal)?.Partnow only says Tier 5 players can't be expected to play a significant role in helping a team go deep in the playoffs...he doesn't say they are unplayable. Russell is still going to be our starting PG this year, and my hope is that Finchie is successful in convincing him to play a suitable role more aligned with how the league sees his value, and allow players who are able to make more significant contributions to shine. If not, I think our coach showed us in the playoffs that he will do what he has to do and won't allow Russell to be on the court if he is not constructive. My guess is there are other teams with a Tier 5 player in the starting lineup who are still in the championship conversation. I think we will be one of those.

Now, I'm interested in where the Wolves I'm counting on more this season fall in the tiering. Will Gobert and KAT fall into Tier 1 or 2? Where will Ant fall? Will Jaden find himself in Tier 4, or fall out of the top 125 entirely ( I think he will end up in 4).

[Monster]

https://theathletic.com/3412054/2022/07/11/nba-players-top-125-tier-5/

Some of you may appreciate Seth Partnow, some of you may not. I'm in the group that appreciates his consistently deep dive into advanced analytics when evaluating the worth of a player. So I always look forward to his annual ranking of the top 125 players into 5 tiers, and this week he will be releasing in the Athletic his 5 tiers...beginning with the bottom tier 5 Monday and concluding with the top tier Friday This year I was most interested in where he was going to place Dlo...he had him in tier 5 last year, and with the improvement some of us noted last year, I was hoping for an upgrade. Unfortunately, it did not happen, and Russell appears in the bottom 40 of the league again. Partnow specifically calls him out, saying "Simply put, a PG of his level and experience simply can't have his volume of poor decisions with the ball at inopportune times and hope to play a key role in his team advancing deep into the playoffs".

And this is what the many of us here fear...that we are saddled with a bottom 20% max player with limited appeal to other teams. We heard reports during June about TC trying to move DLo, and it wasn't a surprise to most of us given Finchie's benching him during a critical final game against Memphis. I held some hope that once again a GM would bite on Russell like 4 others have done before, but it didn't happen, as TC was unable to find a suitable deal. So now he and Finchie are forced to go forward with a series of not very attractive options (unattractive trade, extension, or let his contract run out).

The silver lining? (since I'm still over the moon about the Gobert deal)?.Partnow only says Tier 5 players can't be expected to play a significant role in helping a team go deep in the playoffs...he doesn't say they are unplayable. Russell is still going to be our starting PG this year, and my hope is that Finchie is successful in convincing him to play a suitable role more aligned with how the league sees his value, and allow players who are able to make more significant contributions to shine. If not, I think our coach showed us in the playoffs that he will do what he has to do and won't allow Russell to be on the court if he is not constructive. My guess is there are other teams with a Tier 5 player in the starting lineup who are still in the championship conversation. I think we will be one of those.

Now, I'm interested in where the Wolves I'm counting on more this season fall in the tiering. Will Gobert and KAT fall into Tier 1 or 2? Where will Ant fall? Will Jaden find himself in Tier 4, or fall out of the top 125 entirely ( I think he will end up in 4).

He has Russell as the 93rd best player in the league. That seems reasonable to me. There are 30 teams so that means he would be the 3rd or 4th best player on a team. I think that's still a pretty good player right? In 2020 he had Russell ranked in the 4B tier.

I'm not sure why you didn't add more of a quote from the article on Russell.

"Speaking of Russell, to finish up, I should note that some of the hardest players to properly tier are the not-quite-star players with large on-ball roles. How to compare an extremely effective role player to a middle-of-the-pack offensive lead is an unanswerable question, and my attempt to do so is to consider what a player's ideal role would be on a top-level team and how well he would (if it's a role he has filled) or likely would perform (based on his skill set if he hasn't).

If there is a player type I'm lower on than consensus, it is the moderate- or low-efficiency bucket getter who doesn't bring much value in other areas. While more shot creation is not a bad thing, top teams generally need complementary skills much more. So if you wonder why players with modest counting stats such as Alex Caruso make the list over some others, this is the reason."

Like you said some of the question is what role Russell slots into especially now with Gobert here. Last season Russell moved towards being more of a Pg than a scorer. Can he continue that path and find more balance in when he does both? I think it's possible but it's not certain. One thing Russell did improve last season that I often mentioned as a bit of a problem with him was his turnovers. He really cut them down while upping his assists. Of course the other question is can he not be a liability on defense? He did enough last year he wasn't part of the problem and seemed to help in same ways. Was that any type of progression or was it just the scheme? Does Gobert being on the court help him on both ends? If it does it makes Russell a better player both in the regular season and in the playoffs. We will see soon enough.

Also from the article

"I do my best to ignore salary; being overpaid doesn't make someone a worse player, just a worse trade/cap asset. And I'm tiering players, not ranking assets."

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Well, that's one way of spinning it, I suppose. There's value in what Seth Partnow provides to the basketball community, but we need to acknowledge that this is definitely a subjective article where he's attempting to piece together metrics with what he thinks to be true. Notably, Partnow strongly hints in his article that he values complimentary players more than bucket getters, which obviously doesn't work in D'Angelo Russell's favor.

Your framing of his article is entirely skewed, however. For instance, you referred to Russell as a bottom 20-percent player when really that's only true in the context of Partnow's article, and even then it's a top-125 piece that still portrays Russell as a clear starter in the league. He even mentioned that Russell's talent level is "possibly" above where he placed him, which just shows that even someone less thrilled with Russell can't ignore what he's able to do on the basketball court.

Another perspective entirely might be that Russell has plenty of room for growth in terms of production. Russell comes in as a "Tier 5" player, according to Partnow, despite having one of the worst shooting seasons of his career while playing in an offensive system that wasn't necessarily built to his strengths. Rather, Russell has shown to be a high-level pick-and-roll ball-handler throughout his career as well as an off-ball scoring threat and neither of which was fully utilized last season out of necessity. Frankly, Minnesota needed Russell on the ball more due to a lack of shot creators on the roster and they also didn't have a dive man in the pick-and-roll that would allow for Russell to consistently operate in that action so Finch avoided it -- for better or worse.

Things could look much different a year from now given the off-season additions for the Timberwolves and the expected regression for Russell as a shooter. While those like Partnow and yourself might never appropriately value or recognize Russell, his individual numbers and overall impact on winning should be more evident and indicative of his talent level as Minnesota looks to become a contender next season.