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Last season Russell Westbrook had a 1.59 assist to turnover ratio for the year.

As a supporter of Russell Westbrook I can say that is horrible.

In the 4 games he has played in Summer league his Ast/TO is 1.55

Again horrible.

As a fan I know it can be easy to look the other way and focus on the positives of Westbrook's game. "Oh man he can get into the paint at will. He rebounds great for his position. He does manage to rack up a lot of assists. He plays great D"

And he turns the ball over a TON.

So far in summer league he is averaging 7.75assists a game which is freakin' great. But.........



When the Sonics won 52 games with Luke and AD splitting time at the PG, they were both in the top 5 of Ast/TO that year. Sure every now and then one might go off for 18 points but their job was to take care of the rock.

Anyone remember when the Kings had White Chocolate on their team? They were talented but didn't go very far. Of course J-Will was leading the league in TO's but as soon as they traded him for Bibby, they started to make deep playoff runs.

Bottom line any team whose PG leads the league in turnovers isn't going anywhere.

So as a fan what would you like to see Russell Westbrook's assist to turnover ratio be next year to make you believe that he is turning/growing into a point guard.

2:1
2.2:1
2.5:1
2.7:1
3:1

For myself next season I'd like to see Westbrook float somewhere between 2.2 and 2.5 assists to 1 turnover to make a believer out of me that he is growing into a PG.

But am I even being realistic? Should we expect 2:1 out of Westbrook? Less? Is 2:1 too much to ask from your starting PG?

Sometimes I think that Westbrook is like a young race car driver. He knows he has a ton of speed and power but he doesn't get the finesse that you need in the turns.The summer league is a bad place to look at the stats because quite a few of those turnovers go through the hands of a B.J. Mullens or off a Devon Hardin who wasn't looking for the ball. I was looking for him to make better decisions on when to step on the gas and when to break and set things up in the half court. It will be interesting to see what his assist/turnover ratio will be when he is back to playing with Durant and Green, and whether or not he'll show some maturation in his game as a floor leader. I want him to be somewhere between 2:1 and 2.5:1 to show improvement.

I agree with mnkinga about waiting until we get into the season, but the point is definitely a valid one. The question will start to come about (about half-way in to the 10/11 season), if we aren't having success and his A:TO isn't any better... "is this another steve francis?" As far as expectations, I would like to see a significant improvement, but am not expecting one which will place him even into the better part of the league. I would be happy with somewhere around 1.8:1. One other consideration is that he played off the ball with Earl in the game at often times. Now, if you look at shooting guards they generally have much worse A:TO (they pass less and look to score more).

According to 82games.com, Westbrook was ~1.7:1 at PG and 1.3:1 at SG. Let's say he improves a little bit (one or two bad decisions per game or so), then he'll be right there at 2:1... which is where I think a 2nd year point guard who isn't necessarily a natural should be

if its not at least 2:1 he should be moved to scoring gaurd

Just wanted to bump this thread since Westbrooks TO'S were brought up in another thread. And what we were hoping for back during the Summer.

The kid is sitting at a AST:TO of 2.29.

I'm becoming a believer.

wiff wrote:
I'm becoming a believer.

Me too. Once his shooting efficiency goes up, watch out.

As far as his shooting, I feel like his jump shot has at least looked a lot more solid lately. He doesn't have true 3 point range, but when he pulls up from about 20 feet in, I feel a ton more confident in it than I did last year. From looking at the jump shot info on 82games.com, it doesn't really seem like this newly found confidence I have in his jump shot is based on anything more than a feeling, because his eFG% on jumpshots is actually about 1% lower...

wizkid27 wrote:As far as his shooting, I feel like his jump shot has at least looked a lot more solid lately. He doesn't have true 3 point range, but when he pulls up from about 20 feet in, I feel a ton more confident in it than I did last year. From looking at the jump shot info on 82games.com, it doesn't really seem like this newly found confidence I have in his jump shot is based on anything more than a feeling, because his eFG% on jumpshots is actually about 1% lower...

Whenever he pulls up around the free throw line or on the elbow it's pretty much money.

Russell's floor game has really improved.. I kind of want to be able to fast forward to next season to see where he gets to with another offseason of work. His peripheral numbers are also very good.. his steal%, rebound%, and block% are all high for a point guard. On their own they don't mean much for his position but together it's a lot of little stuff that Russ does to win us games, sometimes blatantly so (two recent games won off of Russ' offensive rebounding).

His shot selection still needs work. I think he still takes too many off balance jumpers and some crazy attempts at the rim. He's made some progress this year on his shot selection. I like the fact that he's virtually eliminated the three pointer from his repetoire.

Russ would probably be a borderline all star PG right now with just a modest increase in his scoring efficiency. If you compare him to someone like Derrick Rose, Russ does almost every better than Rose except score the ball. And it's not like Rose is some kind of luminary there either, his TS% this year is only barely over 50%. In fact, if you discount Russ' horrible December where he shot over two threes a game, his TS% on the year matches that of Derrick Rose (who, granted, suffered through some injuries).

It all comes to shot selection. He's figured out that he has to stop taking threes. Now he has to be smarter about that mid range jump shot. Derrick Rose shoots a high FG% because he usually shoots that shot with balance and in rhythm. Too often, Russ is leaning sideways, or leaning towards the basket, or shooting off the wrong foot. This is something that will probably have to be corrected in the offseason, but I don't thin it's anything beyond his ability. When he does get his feet set, and shoots that elbow jumper in rhythm it's usually spot on.

wizkid27 wrote:As far as his shooting, I feel like his jump shot has at least looked a lot more solid lately. He doesn't have true 3 point range, but when he pulls up from about 20 feet in, I feel a ton more confident in it than I did last year. From looking at the jump shot info on 82games.com, it doesn't really seem like this newly found confidence I have in his jump shot is based on anything more than a feeling, because his eFG% on jumpshots is actually about 1% lower...

This is influenced heavily by Russ' love for the three pointer early in the season, particularly in December..

Russ has much better shooting percentages on all shots out to 15 feet. He's shooting 46% this year from the rim out to 15 feet compared to 41.8% on those same shots last season. Almost idential shot attempts per game too.

On shot attempts 16 feet and further, he's shooting slightly worse than last season.

Russ should continue to focus on honing his game inside of the foul line extended, that's where he's most effective. This offseason, he should work on developing a reliable jump shot out to about 20 feet. He gets to the line enough to where he doesn't need to be as accurate as Derrick Rose to be an effective scorer, he just needs to keep defenses honest.

Russ is really impressing me lately. I, like slick watts wants to fast forward to next season to see his improvement.

3 things I want to see out of him...

1) Better shot selection, knowing when to take the shot and when to pass.
2) more energy on defense, when he is into it he is a great defender, but when he is lazy he is pretty awful. I hope to see a Durant type improvement this off-season.
3) Improving his ball handling. He is actually a good ball handler now, and has improved it a lot since college, but I want him to be able to have ELITE ball handling it will make him that much more dangerous.

dream_catcher_9 wrote:2) more energy on defense, when he is into it he is a great defender, but when he is lazy he is pretty awful. I hope to see a Durant type improvement this off-season.

Agreed. Although he was great overall on defense at Golden State, there was one play late in the game that really typifies this problem. Russ comes off a high screen with Krstic, gets the lane to the basket, gets bumped a bit on the shot attempt but does not get the call. He goes to the ground for about a second trying to sell the contact, gets up scowling at the ref, jogs back the other way and can't find his man in transition. Coby Karl ended up with a wide open three point attempt, which he missed.

Another instance of this kind of play would be the Daniel Gibson three at home against Cleveland which won them the game.

Russ has the tools to be an elite defender at his position but as dream catcher said, he must learn to keep his head in the game.

Russell is now knocking on the door of 2.5:1 assist to turnover ratio (he's at 2.49:1). He's currently seventh in the league among PG's in assist%, a sliver behind Jason Kidd and Baron Davis. His TOV% is down to 15.6% which is right around Baron Davis' level. In fact, production wise, Davis and Russ are dead ringers for each other, similar high usage rate for PG, AST% and TOV% nearly identical, good rebounding #'s.

Really excited about Russ' turnaround.

If Russ keeps this up this level of play for the rest of the season I think it will surpass all of our expectation or him this season. He has be.en great this month

Russ ended up with a 2.43AST/TO That is pretty solid. That beats the hell out of 1.59AST/TO it was last year.

I dunno. I like his A:TO and it's better than anyone expected but he still turns it over too much. His A:TO is benefitting by the fact that our team gets hardly any assists, most of them are his to earn - lots of 'cheap' assists.

I want to see Russ lower his turnovers to less than 3.0 a game. I don't think there's a reason with the style of basketball we play that he should be higher than that. That's my goal for him next year, as well as shoot 52%+ TS. I'm real disappointed with how Russ finished the year after his great February.

baby step my friend, baby steps.