D'Angelo Russell has been improving at a steady rate for the Los Angeles Lakers this season. After struggling coming out of the gate, Russell has made incremental improvements as his rookie campaign has went along. In the month of January, Russell has increased his points and assists averages as compared to his first month of the season, and where the Lakers were outscored by 13 points per 100 possessions in November when D'Angelo was on the floor, they have outscored their opponents by 5.4 points per 100 possessions when he is on the floor this month, the best net rating on the team in January.
Russell is slowly starting to adjust to NBA defenses, encouraging progress from a rookie who is still just 19-years old. This improvement has led to increasing confidence from Russell, most memorably after a strong game against the Sacramento Kings when he told reporters "y'all ain't seen nothing yet." One of those things we haven't seen yet? Practice crossovers on fellow rookie Anthony Brown, but that changed today when Russell "made sure" Serena Winters of Lakers Nation shared footage with us all:
.@dloading wanted to make sure I tweeted this out for y'all pic.twitter.com/0Z0ap4E6Ao
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) January 19, 2016
Brown is no slouch defensively, and currently boasts the best defensive rating of any Laker (95.9). While Russell has a bit of a speed advantage and this is just practice, turning Brown around like that is still pretty impressive. Fun stuff from the self-assured rookie.
All stats per NBA.com