Los Angeles Lakers: D’Angelo Russell playing off the Ball?

Whether D’Angelo Russell liking a tweet about Lonzo Ball was intentional or not, it got us thinking about how his game would look if he played off the ball for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Every basketball player likes to have the ball in their hands, especially the good ones.

From playing on blacktops in their local neighborhoods to bouncing the rock off NBA hardwoods, star players are programmed to want to dribble and shoot.

So there’s no exception for Los Angeles Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell.

Heck, he even has the ball in his hands in his Twitter profile picture.

What made news on Tuesday night was the fact that D’Angelo not only likes to have the ball in his hands, but he likes things on Twitter, too. In fact, he liked a tweet that suggested the Lakers should pass on Lonzo Ball in the upcoming 2017 NBA Draft.

Tongue-in-cheek aside, and acknowledging the possibility that D’Angelo accidentally liked the tweet (what a world we live in, the disclaimers we are forced to make), this returns us to a familiar question many have considered since the end of last season: Does it make sense to play D’Angelo Russell off the ball?

Besides a few reps at shooting guard to begin the 2015-16 season, D’Angelo has almost exclusively run the point for the Lakers; and in two seasons, he has been ok at the position. From his rookie season to last season, his assist numbers went up, along with his shooting volume, and his turnover rate slightly improved.

It wasn’t until March, as the season was in the throes of lottery jockeying, that head coach Luke Walton decided to try D’Angelo at shooting guard. Walton explained his decision to the LA Times:

"“We want to see what D’Angelo can do scoring-wise as an off-ball type of scorer. We haven’t seen a ton of it this year and we want to see more of it.”"

After spending the previous two games demoted to the bench, the opportunity arose when a fight between starter Nick Young and Milwaukee Bucks players Malcolm Brogdon and Greg Monroe forced the Lakers coaching staff to do some lineup maneuvering. The result was D’Angelo starting at shooting guard next to Jordan Clarkson.

It didn’t take long for the change to pay dividends, with D’Angelo exploding for 40 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

One game is one game, and having looked at the tape, there were many possessions when D’Angelo still carried the ball up the floor and played the role of chief facilitator in the half-court offense. But in that game, and over the next nine games, there were glimpses of what it would look like to situate the 6’5″ guard off the ball. I highlighted some examples in the video below.

The first thing that’s going to happen when playing shooting guard instead of point guard is obvious — less touches. A player playing “off the ball” means as it reads, the player will be in possession of the ball for a smaller amount of time.

However, touches and time are two different things. While D’Angelo saw the amount of time he held the ball decrease when playing shooting guard — from 4.2 seconds per touch to 3.6 seconds per touch — he saw his overall touches increase.

By dribbling the ball less when he touched it, receiving more passes than he made, D’Angelo was put in a position to maximize his production shooting the basketball, something he noted after the role change, via Baxter Holmes of ESPN:

"“I feel like when you’re playing shooting guard, you’ve got to score the ball or make plays for your teammates,” Russell said. “Playing the point guard, it’s harder to do that, be aggressive, try to score the ball every time, because you’ve got to make at least one pass. But figuring it out, whatever position I’m in, I’m going to try to make the best of it.”"

On catch-and-shoot situations, during the 10-game stretch he started as the 2-guard next to Jordan Clarkson, he shot 50 percent in effective field goal percentage (which takes into account three-pointers being worth one more point than two-pointers), compared to 44 percent before the lineup change.

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It’s a small sample size, but D’Angelo proved that scoring the ball was easier for him when he could just focus on shooting it, rather than having to worry about getting other teammates involved.

What we are learning is that the Lakers can utilize D’Angelo in a variety of ways spread throughout the offense. There are times it makes sense to have him facilitate as the primary ball-handler; the guy did lead the team in pick-and-roll possessions, a play that will always be a mainstay in his game.

But he can also float out on the wing, let Julius Randle carry the ball up the court in transition (as we saw in the video), let the other guards create for him. He will find a lot of extra points that way without needing to exert as much energy to get them.

Next: 2017 NBA Mock Draft: Post-Lottery edition

The numbers from last year show that less time holding the ball doesn’t mean less touches. As long as the Lakers keep D’Angelo heavily involved in the offense, which they will, there shouldn’t be a problem — Lonzo Ball or no Lonzo Ball.