2. Russell is a Defensive Liability

There is nothing that can be done about the fact that D’Angelo Russell is quite simply a bad defender. He lowers the ceiling of a unit’s defensive capabilities while having to be covered by his teammates. That’s not helpful to a team with championship aspirations.

While Green was joking when he said this, there is some truth to what he was saying about Russell’s defense in late October. Green mentioned that he saw Russell defend well in practice and how he is going to be asked to defend with the Warriors.

“Watching him in practice yesterday, I told him, ‘Oh you showed me you can defend. I didn’t know you could. So that’s the expectation now,'” the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year told reporters. “It’s interesting because you just never know what’s been asked of someone.

“You can easily judge a situation and say, ‘Oh man, he hasn’t really defended much,’ or, ‘He’s not that good on the defensive end.’ But if he’s never been asked to defend, it’s kind of hard to make that judgment. 

“Obviously, we’re going to ask him to defend. Yesterday, he was asked to defend and he showed that he can. I told him that’ll be the expectation moving forward.

“Sorry, buddy, you showed it.”

via Lets Go Warriors.

It seems Green’s plan didn’t quite work out. Russell may have been asked to defend, but it wasn’t enough. He is just simply a defensive liability and that’s not going to change by asking to try harder. There is definitely skill required when it comes to defending and he lacks that ability.

One of the critical elements that made the Golden State Warriors’ championship runs was their defensive versatility around Steph Curry. Having a starting backcourt of less than stellar on-ball defender would place a great strain on the rest of the unit.