Lakers News: How LA Feels About D'Angelo Russell's Postseason Shooting Slump

The Lakers starting point guard has had a disappointing postseason start.

The postseason output of Los Angeles Lakers starting point guard D'Angelo Russell has been erratic thus far, but both D-Lo and his LA comrades are crossing their fingers that things turnaround sooner rather than later, Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times.

Including the Lakers' 108-102 play-in game victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, Broderick notes that Russell has averaged a miserable 8.6 points while shooting just 27% from the floor, including a scant 22.2% from long range.

This represents a massive slide from Russell's robust regular season production for Los Angeles. Across 17 games, the 6'4" vet averaged 17.4 points on .484/.414/.735 shooting splits, 6.1 assists, 2.9 rebounds, 0.6 steals and 0.5 blocks a night.

Los Angeles head coach Darvin Ham appeared to give Russell a wide berth in his generous post-practice comments Friday.

“It’s a make-or-miss league,” Ham said. “Sometimes you’re on. Sometimes you’re not. We’re just hopeful he’ll be on Saturday.”

As are we, Darvin. As are we.

Should Russell's shooting slump persist throughout the series (and in fairness, he played okay in Game 1, scoring 19 points on 41.2% shooting), it raises big questions about just how valuable the impending unrestricted free agent actually is for Los Angeles going forward. 

Should LA retain Russell this offseason, or should the club look elsewhere for an upgrade at the starting point guard position? His backup, Dennis Schröder, is also an unrestricted free agent.

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