Bad Bart wrote:How is Russ not number 1 at point guard? Is there something I'm missing?
So when you look at my lists you'll see he is #1 among point guards of the PBP era by offensive rebounding impact, but nowhere to be found by defense despite the fact that most of his boards were on defense.
You'll also note that former teammate Steven Adams tops offensive rebounding for centers, and I'll make clear that Adams tops both all players in offensive rebounding and overall rebounding by best 4-year sample peaks... but this isn't happening while Westbrook was his teammate.
So basically, Westbrook's defensive rebounds shouldn't be seen as evidence for rebounding impact, but rather fast-break starting impact. His teammates - like Adams - could have gotten those boards, but they were instructed to allow Westbrook to get them instead.
By contrast on offense where crashing the boards is how you have offensive rebounding impact, Westbrook has legit impact going and getting boards that would have otherwise ended up in the hands of the defense some fraction of the time (while forcing his teammates to play 4 on 5 on defense when he goes for the rebound and doesn't get it).
None of this necessarily means Westbrook isn't the best point guard rebounder of the era or in history, only that the defensive boards he get tend to make us drastically overrate his rebounding impact generally, because these were mostly not about getting boards instead of opponents, but getting them instead of teammates.
