D’Angelo Russell showed off his “D’Angelo Chucksell” side in this game by not recording an assist until well into the second half. I can already imagine the rebuttals of pained Nets fans: “He has nobody to pass it to!” or “He made good passes but his teammates can’t hit shots!” or “He was supposed to play shooting guard for us but is playing out of position because of the injury to Jeremy Lin!” or “I have a victim complex from being in the shadow of the Knicks!” or “We need Russell to score to win games!”. Yawn. NBA fans are so predictable.
I will say that it is impressive to me that Chucksell has raised his percentages significantly from his time with the Lakers while shooting at a much higher volume (“chucking”, if you will). His three point shot has disappeared, but his midrange pull-up looks kinda money every time I see it. Then again, I usually only see it when it goes in, so of course it looks kinda money.
DTB’s Fun Fact of the Day: If you look at Per-36 scoring and remove all the no-name scrubs from the list, Chucksell is actually the seventh-best scorer in the league. The order is Porzingis, Antetokounmpo, Harden, Curry, James, Cousins, then Chucksell. Davis, Clarkson, and Beal round out the top ten. Huh. Cool.