Post#32 » by tsherkin » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:58 pm
Hmm.
Interesting question.
Both of them really, really young and still clearly under development. Rose still isn't an impressive PnR player, still a basic penetrate and pitch player more in the mould of a sane Stephon Marbury with more scoring talent than a savvy floor general, and surrounded by more balanced talent than Durant. That makes team-related comparisons foolish.
But as players?
Both of them bring a lot to the table. Both young, both extremely adept at scoring the ball, though Durant is a lot better for the first 46-47 minutes of a game. Rose is a lot more agile, though, because he's much smaller and has a way better handle on the ball, able to pretty much go where he pleases until he runs into help defense. Clearly, they each bring something different to the table.
Rose is an on-ball guy, Durant is more an off-ball guy. Rose has more in common with, and I'll use the name again but it really does Rose a disservice, Marbury, whereas Durant is like Reggie Miller on mutagenic slime or something. Very different players from a style perspective. Durant of course is more of a 3/4 while Rose is a scoring 1. Same age.
Totally different height brackets. Rose is 6'3 and Durant 6'10 or so. As a result of that, anyone expecting big-time handles out of KD down the pipe is in for serious disappointment, it isn't going to happen. The number of guys 6'8 and taller who have been sick ball-handlers is small enough, you start reaching out to 6'10 and you're talking like Danny Manning, Ralph Sampson, Kevin Garnett and... and... Bueller... Lamar Odom, certainly, and a couple of other guys, but they are big-time rare.
Anyway, obvious strengths for Rose would be that he creates shots for others and that he's really mobile with the ball, can attack a defense in a variety of ways. It should be pointed out that he sucked ass from downtown pretty much all year except in December, when he was so hot for 16 games that it affected his seasonal average and everyone thinks he made big strides there... even him, as we saw in the playoffs. He is a bad 3pt shooter still. He did, however, take a big step forward as a FT shooter. A REALLY big step. 86%+, especially on 7 FTA/g, that's elite. Not quite top echelon, but closing in. If he maintains 84%+, it keeps him very dangerous on a new level, especially since he was drawing fouls at a much higher rate than he had in his previous seasons. That made a HUGE difference in his offensive value, nevermind that he added almost 2 apg as he upped his USG%.
I think that, if Chicago is smart, they'll try to get a semi-competent on-ball player to put next to him, someone who can iso a little, is a good 3pt shooter and can take a second-scorer type role. That'd take a little bit of pressure off of Rose and would allow him to comfortably scale back his shooting volume a bit so he could focus more on passing and wouldn't get owned so hard in the playoffs like he did against Miami. His raw averages were good in the PS, but his scoring efficiency was putrid... and a lot of it was that he was forced to go 1-on-5 because his teammates were not contributing to a sufficient level on offense. On D and on the glass, absolutely, but that was the story all year, right? The Bulls' offense was driven by 25 ppg on 55% TS from Rose... and by excellent D and rebounding. They were, however, a remarkably pedestrian offense given how good Rose was during the year. That still left them 11th in the league in ORTG, but despite his HUGE season, they weren't any better on O than they'd been in 09. This should be the beginning of the BRING BACK BEN GORDON!!!!! movement, in my opinion, because he's exactly the player they need. Not a 25 ppg superstar, and given his recent performance he'd be comparatively inexpensive. But he's quick, he can drive a bit, can shoot particularly well, and he'd slot well next to Rose because he's more of an off-ball guy. His size would be a bit of an issue but their team D is so good it wouldn't matter THAT much.
Anyway, I'm getting off-topic.
Rose is a good player, on a good team, but he doesn't impact an offense to the same extent as a true PG. He's also clearly evidenced the ability to improve and is very much representative of the Next Generation, right, the up-and-comers who will replace the fading stars off the current era very shortly as the face of the league (providing the league returns... o.O).
Durant is a very different type of player. He's coming off of his second consecutive scoring title and his third straight season at 57.7%+ TS. He's a more efficient and higher-volume scorer than Rose and he looked a lot better in the playoffs this year until the last couple of games against Dallas (who, I might point out, also owned Kobe and Lebron in that same postseason run with their defense). Bigger, less mobile compared to a guy like Rose, better rebounder, still a reasonably good passer given his physique and style of play.
Rocked about 29/8/3 in the playoffs this past season, on about 58% TS, which is roughly an 8% increase over what he'd managed the year before, and in almost 3x as many games. 28.6 ppg actually led the playoffs in scoring average. Largely sucked ass from the field against Dallas after Game 2, though he continued to draw fouls effectively until the final game of the series, when he was just putrid overall. Rebounded and passed very well for most of the series. Brutal on the turnovers in game 4. Still put 27.2 ppg on them, though, and dropped 40 in game one. Went 2/20 from 3 across games 2, 3 and 4, that hurt him, but at around 7 3PA/g, that's too much from downtown even for a shooter... unless his name is either Reggie Miller or Ray Allen.
So you're looking at two young players, both with some strengths and great upside, and both with flaws, both also needing a little more out of their teammates to take the next step.
Given this choice, you have to consider a few things, such as...
How good is Russell Westbrook?
o.O
What am I talking about?
Well, Westbrook was also 22 last season and put up 22, 4.5 and 8 on about 54% TS, shooting 84% from the line and drawing 8 FTA/g on 17.6 FGA/g (Rose took 19.7, and noticeably more 3s, to score 25 ppg).
Most will want to categorize Westbrook as a product of Durant, but we've seen it before with passers all over the place, a scorer's going to score one way or another and a passer's going to fair pretty well away from his scoring threat too. Magic did it with and without Kareem, Pippen did it with and without Magic, Isiah did it with and without Dantley, Nash has done it with and without Dirk or Amare, etc, etc. He took a similar number of shots as Rose did from 16-23 feet and shot a similar percentage (both around 4.5/g, Westbrook at 36%, Rose at 38%), and of course did a better job of drawing fouls.
Tough to compare. What does this mean?
Well, let's see. The Bulls made it to the ECFs and got smoked in 5. The Thunder made it to the WCFs... and got smoked in 5. Chicago and Oklahoma City had two different styles, but both had an equivalent level talent around them. For Chicago, that meant ass-loads of rebounding and defense, some spot-up shooting and no one else on the team who could effectively create a shot for himself.
For the Thunder, it meant a major second scoring threat, piss-poor outside shooting in the PS, unremarkable rebounding (though Ibaka's 7 rpg in 29 mpg was good, as was Durant's 8 rpg).
Two different styles, two different results... both main scorers floundering against a better defensive team that went onto the Finals. Westbrook was HORRENDOUS against the Mavs and he was gunning up a storm in Game 5 (28 FGAs!!! o.O) while before that game, he was turning the ball over at an epic rate.
What am I saying?
Neither is better than the other, they're just different styles of baller. Both ended up hitting a wall against a better defensive squad that owned them while their teammates fell apart and it didn't matter that Rose was the better ball-handler or that Durant draws fouls more effectively and so on and so forth. Neither was able to elevate his team to the next level, they both went just as far as they other guy and lost just as fast in the Conference Finals.
They need more time to differentiate themselves and for one or the other to draw the gap wider. Or perhaps they will improve (or stagnate) at equal rates and remain neck-and-neck. There's nothing to say that favors one or the other. Each needs more of what the other's team has: Durant needs better defenders and rebounders around him and Rose needs more of what Westbrick brings to the table in terms of a second shot creator.
