spearsy23 wrote:Pillendreher wrote:spearsy23 wrote:No, I'm not particularly interested in a debate about rather or not the team would be better if Westbrook was shooting better. That's just common sense. I'm more interested in the statement that Russ can't offset his poor shooting. If you mean Russ can't be as good as he was in the past if he doesn't shoot better, then again that's a common sense statement. I took that as he can't offset his inefficiency and have a positive impact, which is clearly untrue.
Then prove to me how he is offsetting his shooting with more than just declaring it to be the case. So far you haven't me offered anything that would support your thesis.
The guy can't carry lineups by himself anymore and has greatly diminished offensive impact stats. And nothing is changing.
It's not Russell Westbrook offsetting his shooting struggles
It's Paul George.
The offense is +10.9 points per 100 with him in the game.
With Westbrook/no george- +10.2 over no Westbrook/no George.
That's not answering my question. What explicitly is he doing to offset so many - let's face it - wasted possessions by him? You can't just look at the team output and go "Oh, it's working anyway" because you're not accounting for what the team is actively leaving on the table because of his struggles.
Is he creating more shot opportunities for his teammates? Per stats.nba.com, this is his lowest potential assists per 100 possessions season since 14/15. At the same time, he's averaging a career high in points created per assist per 100 possessions, so I guess there's something there (but nothing outrageous: We're talking about ~2 pp100p compared to the last 3 seasons, in some cases even less).
He's stealing the ball quite often, but it's actually just a tad better than his career average. He's grabbing the fewest offensive rebounds of his career, so it's not like he's generating a ton more possessions through that either.
He's deflecting the ball a lot, but that is - again - right in line with his recent play: 3.3 per 100 poss. last season, 3.29 this season.
So what else is there? The defense has been a little better, but he doesn't care that with enough regularity to actually make up for all the bricks.
We can't put a concrete number on this, but I find it highly irrational to act like it doesn't matter in the end. It does. The guy is in th 100th percentile in USG% and in the 11th percentile in points per shot attempt per ctg.com. There's no way in hell he can make up for that, especially when you keep in mind that it would need to be on top on what he has been doing in previous seasons outside of shooting the ball since the goal is to maintain his level. That's just not possible.
"I don't know of any player that, when the shot goes up, he doesn't want it to go in," Donovan said