and played together the one season in Houston and Russ had a kind of similar sudden falloff.

Russ was always an erratic shooter but this past season he seemed to miss so many easy baskets at the rim that used to be dunks in previous years. He had actually struggled at the beginning of the previous season in Washington but came on strong in the 2nd half and a lot of his early season struggles were written off to injuries/covid but had similar struggles in LA. Like the saying goes "Father Time is undefeated" but its rare to see elite players fall off that quickly.