Today’s NBA is full of heavy metal lead guards. There’s the scintillating guitar solo shooters like Stephen Curry, Trae Young and Damian Lillard, the rhythm-keeping bassists like Chris Paul and Kyle Lowry, and the weird, funky and dazzling percussion experts like James Harden and Luka Doncic. The league is full of heavy metal guards, but Minnesota Timberwolves lead man D’Angelo Russell is jazz. He isn’t one thing or another, he isn’t even the same genre, he’s a quirky blend of instruments and sounds that probably shouldn’t work, but somehow do.
In a vacuum, Russell’s herky-jerky game has worked in his favor.