Lakers News: D’Angelo Russell Is Having An Unfortunate Playoff Shooting Streak

LA's starting point guard is not making a great case for his own impending free agency.

Los Angeles Lakers starting point guard D'Angelo Russell has had an uneven start in LA's two playoff games. Last night, in 30:11 of action during a 103-93 road loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, Russell scored just five points on 2-of-11 shooting from the field (1-of-5 from deep), while pulling down seven rebounds and dishing out four dimes.

Per the stat wizards at ESPN, Russell has connected on less than 50% of his field goals across each of his first 13 career playoff games, the longest run of inefficiency since then-Toronto Raptors All-Star DeMar DeRozan shot less than 50% for his first 25 career playoff games. 

On the plus side, DeRozan did get a lot better, although he has continued to occasionally underwhelm in big postseason moments.

Through his first two games in the series, the 6'4" point guard is averaging 12 points on .321/.286/1.000 shooting splits, 5.5 assists, 5.5 rebounds and 0.5 steals a night.

After the game, perhaps aware that he had been utterly unsuccessful as his club's lead guard, Russell tried to claim that he wasn't a true point guard, and saw himself more as a general "basketball player." Basketball players, ideally, make more than 32.1% of their shoots from the floor. Especially if they're about to become unrestricted free agents this summer and hope to get anything near their current four-year, $117.3 million contract.

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