Is it on Donovan or Westbrook?

[SpreeS]

Why are the Paul George bench units without russ horrible? Why couldn’t Oladipo lead the bench units last year? Russ has his faults but these threads are made by uninformed posters.

Westbrook unit w/o George 565 min

per 100 pos 110.2 - 109.2

Adams 371 min
Carmelo 348 min
Abrines 271 min
Grant 248 min
Roberson 221 min

George unit w/o Westbrook 547 min

per 100 pos 100.6 - 115.4

Felton 530 min
Grant 445 min
Patt 423 min
Abrines 229 min

Adams 123 min
Carmelo 66 min
Roberson 27 min

That is why!!! 3 best palyers play with Westbrook.

Yes bench lineups normally involve bench players. If George were with all of the starters, it wouldn’t be a bench lineup. Your argument supports its a problem, not a Wesbrook one.

Can Westbrook lead this bench?

Westbrook with this bench unit (Felton, Grant and Patt 118 min) f...ed too.

per 100 pos 104.3 - 110.9

Also George with Adams (w/o Westbrook 143 min) play well

per 100 pos 110.9 - 109.8

[ThunderBolt]

“How many coaches”? Proceeds with a long list of two.

[3toheadmelo]

Kanter is a stat padder here in New York
Doug was incredibly inconsistent here as well

Westbrook or Donovan didn’t make them better when they left okc.

They both suck

[ThunderBolt]

Westbrook unit w/o George 565 min

per 100 pos 110.2 - 109.2

Adams 371 min
Carmelo 348 min
Abrines 271 min
Grant 248 min
Roberson 221 min

George unit w/o Westbrook 547 min

per 100 pos 100.6 - 115.4

Felton 530 min
Grant 445 min
Patt 423 min
Abrines 229 min

Adams 123 min
Carmelo 66 min
Roberson 27 min

That is why!!! 3 best palyers play with Westbrook.

Yes bench lineups normally involve bench players. If George were with all of the starters, it wouldn’t be a bench lineup. Your argument supports its a problem, not a Wesbrook one.

Can Westbrook lead this bench?

Westbrook with this bench unit (Felton, Grant and Patt 118 min) f...ed too.

per 100 pos 104.3 - 110.9

Also George with Adams (w/o Westbrook 143 min) play well

per 100 pos 110.9 - 109.8

Again, your argument supports the poor rotations by dononvan. The starters were +14.2pp100 with andre roberson healthy. They aren’t a deep team and it’s not like the George thrives when russ leaves the floor. Russ has his faults but it’s bias to blame him for everything.

[TheBallsDeeper]

Westbrook is one of the most athletic players of all time, and works harder than almost anyone in the league, but I think his issue is a below average basketball IQ. eg, I don't think he slacks off on defense, he just doesn't have a clue what to do.

Sometimes he looks totally lost (have a look at the final play in the allstar game). He is often too focused on chasing the ball instead of reading the play. I think if he had a few high IQ role players alongside him working with his strengths, instead of other alphas, the side would be winning more.

[Eskobar13]

The only ones actually relevant here are Sabonis and Oladipo.

Sabonis was a rookie being completely misused by the Thunder, something that's been talked about a lot in the nba media circles throughout the year.

Oladipo literally credited Westbrook for the transformation he went through in the OFF-SEASON that allowed him to become a much better player.

But yeah, **** Westbrook for ruining Carmelo Anthony lol

Also Ibaka, KD, Jackson, Fisher, Waiters, Augustin, Singler, Lamb had the worst TS% on OKC team!!! You could change players and coaches, but you will have the same results.

Ok you're either ignorant or just baiting. Good for you.

Royce Young, the OKC beat reporter, formerly a Thunder blogger was on the Lowe post to discuss OKC issues. He has a significant OKC bias but even he said Donovan plays a very good offensive system when the bench guys are in the game, the ball moves frequently and with purpose. However he said there's no way to coach Westbrook to do that. He sugarcoated it a fair bit by saying what makes Westbrook so great is also what makes him hard to coach.

Donovan isn't some lame ass coach even if he is serving as lightning rod for all of Westbrook centric issues. Hinkie was apparently enamored by him and spent quite a bit of time around UF when he was still coaching there.

Didn't get to catch the pod yet but I agree with him on the point made that Donovan plays a better offensive system with the bench. Still, this shouldn't be used to make his inability to get the starting line-up to play better excusable, nor as an excuse for his rotations which have been far from good from the moment he started coaching this team.

This is not to say Westbrook (and others) are not at fault for not putting in a better effort in terms of rotation, screening, ball-movement... basically all off-ball actions which are obviously fundamental for any good, versatile offensive system to work. But if you look back at KD in OKC, he sometimes was a huge slouch off the ball too. Even Westbrook wasn't this bad before. So it needs to at least be a mea culpa in that regard I would say.

[Karate Diop]

Oladipo and Sabonis are 100% on Westbrook. Westbrook would just not share the rock unless it would lead to a potential assist.

[ZemGOAT]

Westbrook

[KHRICH]

[OBisHalJordan]

Russ is similar to AI in that he's an aggressive scorer who puts a defense on its heels. When he's on, he's incredible and can take down any team. On a team with good defenders and rebounders that lacks scoring, Russ, like AI, is a perfect fit. However, his game does not bring the same benefits as the offensive caliber of the team goes up.

The vast majority of the problem lies with the coaching, however. A good coach would know when to corral and when to unleash Russ. So far, no coach has proven capable of doing that.

I'd like to see Westbrook coached by Stevens in IT's role on last year's Celtic's team. That would be a good test of this question

[Patches Perry]

Kanter had a PER of 24.0 in 2016 and 24.9 in 2014 with Westbrook. Both career bests.

[Amare_1_Knicks]

It’s probably a little of column A, and a little of column B. Donovan seems to give Westbrook too much free reign with the basketball — at times(like 2017) understandably so, because there really wasn’t a strong secondary ball-handler(But then again, that has me looking at Donovan because Oladipo has blossomed after leaving and is thriving in an on-ball role). Also, looking back to last postseason, it was puzzling to watch Kanter barely play in that series, when he was probably their second or third best player — at least offensively.

Anyway, just in general, that OKC system is far, far from being dynamic. It’s heavily reliant upon Westbrook to create for everyone, as he’s so ball dominant, and there doesn’t seem to be a ton of creativity in terms of offensive schemes implemented there. Melo should absolutely be coming off the bench also. It’s a system lacking in ball movement, or even a culture of selflessness. That’s the head coach AND the PG.

[TacoLord]

I think Donovan has slightly more control of OKC than Lue has of Cleveland, but that's not saying a lot. Lots of big personalities to manage, but when they are on the court, and there isn't a timeout, there isn't much they can do. Big personalities with killer instinct tend to take over games, and Westbrook is one of those guys who will do that. It's one of those "live by the sword, die by the sword" things. You see it work most of the time in the regular season, but come playoffs, if he loses control, the team spirals. Better defensive teams can get to him, and cause him to beat himself while trying to overcompensate for his team.

The thing that's so polarizing about Westbrook is that when he goes into his alpha-dog mode, he disregards his teammates on the offensive side of the ball. He declines sharing the ball, doesn't create good shots for the team, and tries to do everything himself. It can be fun to watch, but it's not good for team chemistry or developing younger players. Trying to harness and redirect his powers for good team ball is incredibly difficult though, and I don't think Brooks or Donovan has done that at any point in his career.

[Patches Perry]

The examples used in the OP have been refuted a million times, but the central objection should be that they're cherry-picked without context. Oladipo's Orlando numbers and physical transformation not considered. Kanter's OKC numbers in 2015 and 2016 not considered. Gibson and McDermott's small sample size not considered (23 games) - FYI Gibson struggled in his first 22 games with the Timberwolves also. Paul George's transition adjustment not considered, his January and February numbers were right there with the best ball of his career.

To provide some current counter-examples using similar methodology-

Cases of Westbrook improving PER:
Jerami Grant - 16.0 PER in 2017-2018. Never higher than 12.6 before.
Steven Adams - has boosted his PER from 11.2 PER to 20.6 PER.
Corey Brewer - 14.0 PER in OKC, only 8.9 PER in LAL and 14.0 is his highest in 4 years
Raymond Felton - 13.0 PER highest in 5 years for him

[RCM88x]

Donovan is not a good fit for this roster. He's obviously a good coach though.

Someone with more NBA experience and an offensive focus would be much better for this team.

[clyde21]

Both.

[Yoshun]

Oladipo and Sabonis are 100% on Westbrook. Westbrook would just not share the rock unless it would lead to a potential assist.

Sabonis was in his first season of NBA ball last year and played in a log jam of bigs who couldn't shoot and stretch the floor. Their bigs were: Adams, Kanter, Gibson and Sabonis, none of whom were good shooters. Whenever they played together they were extremely easy to defend and supplied zero spacing for one another. They are all playing next to guys who can space the floor right now, Sabonis for example, plays next to Turner. He was also playing some what out of position last season, he played mostly PF instead of center. He's also getting more minutes and is no longer stuck in a log jam. It's a combination of playing next to a floor spacing big, it being his second season, playing at a more natural position, playing more minutes and not being in a log jam. Westbrook's lack of shooting obviously impacted floor spacing, but that was more of a team issue than simply a Westbrook issue, their entire team was poor in that regard.

Oladipo may be the only one who actually directly suffered due to Westbrook, but it's not all on Westbrook either. Oladipo, like Westbrook, needs the ball in his hands, a lot, in order to truly be effective. He has a usage over 30% this year. He was really bad off the ball in both Orlando and OKC, he didn't move well at all and his shooting wasn't great. It's a flaw in his game just like it's a flaw in Westbrook's game. He's improved off the ball slightly and his shot has improved a lot, it's obvious he worked on those things in the offseason (and came in in much better shape on top of that). In addition, he had a 3 point explosion in the beginning of this season where he shot well above 40% from 3 for a long time, that has since come down to Earth.

Basically, OKC had a choice last season, give Oladipo a crap ton of touches or give Westbrook a crap ton of touches. Neither of them are particularly good otherwise. What we do know about Westbrook is that he played next to Durant for 8 seasons, a guy who also needs the ball, and they were able to be an effective team.

[berlioz]

The examples used in the OP have been refuted a million times, but the central objection should be that they're cherry-picked without context. Oladipo's Orlando numbers and physical transformation not considered. Kanter's OKC numbers in 2015 and 2016 not considered. Gibson and McDermott's small sample size not considered (23 games) - FYI Gibson struggled in his first 22 games with the Timberwolves also. Paul George's transition adjustment not considered, his January and February numbers were right there with the best ball of his career.

To provide some current counter-examples using similar methodology-

Cases of Westbrook improving PER:
Jerami Grant - 16.0 PER in 2017-2018. Never higher than 12.6 before.
Steven Adams - has boosted his PER from 11.2 PER to 20.6 PER.
Corey Brewer - 14.0 PER in OKC, only 8.9 PER in LAL and 14.0 is his highest in 4 years
Raymond Felton - 13.0 PER highest in 5 years for him

Add to this the fact that Durant had his highest per numbers as a member of the Thunder, not the Warriors.

Also, of course PG and Melo's PER will go down as they are now second and third options. Same in reverse with Oladipo, who also admitted that the reason he got so much better was because being around Westbrook showed him how hard he needed to work. They are both poor off the ball players, and besides, Oladipo was awful last year when he did have the ball in his hands.

As for PG's TS%, it was literally the highest in his career before the all-star break (despite struggling a bit to start the season with adjustment issues), but he's just been on a massive slump since then, shooting 37% from the field and 30% from three in that stretch, compared to 45% and 43% before then. PG himself said that Westbrook is doing a good job of getting him good shots but he just isn't hitting them and that his shot 'feels weird.' Overall, his TS% is still the second highest of his career.

[knuckles862]

It’s definitely both billy seems to not change lineups no matter what and when he does it’s a dumb lineup. Pg with the bench has been horrible all year long yet he has not changed it which is ridiculous eye test and analytics tell you it sucks. For Westbrook when he is playing smart he is as good as anyone but when he plays stupid he is like some random dude off the street just hopped into an nba game and is trying to do too much.

[Pillendreher]

I'm guessing russ. How many coaches can you blame? First it was Brooks, now Donovan. Though I will say Brooks is still dumb for being stubborn in 2012 finals and not benching Perkins

The only difference between Brooks and Donovan is that Donovan is a way worse motivator and way worse at lineup decisions.