Would OKC win more games with a different point guard?

[NaturalThunder]

That's not what I'm debating. Westbrook is by far a better individual player. But as a teammate, leader and all round player, he's nowhere near the other guys. I'm a huge believer in chemistry, and the team game. High character guys are hugely valued, and help to build a proper team. Westbrook drove one of the greatest players the game has ever seen away from the team, that's all you need to know really. Watching Westbrook play makes my eyes bleed as a coach, even if he regularly does things that amaze and astound. He is a huge conundrum, especially for a coach. The Thunder's players are so incredibly under utilised playing next to Westbrook.

Again, this is just my opinion, and your entitled to yours as well. ONCE AGAIN, you have given me zero reason to change it.

I'm sorry I've been a jerk about all of this, but I just don't see any reason to give an argument in attempt to convince you to change your mind. The notion that OKC would've been better this year with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook is so absurd that there's really no reason to argue against it. Your argument is its own argument against itself due to its absurdity.

I'm not sure you could find one other poster on RealGM that would agree with you.

Fine, then if you can't counter it, run along. Go watch some highlight dunks of Russell.

I'm not going to post on/off, +/-, BPM stats and raw stats because it'd laughably be in Westbrook's favor. I know the end result here, as does everyone else. Again, if this was an argument worth having, I'd engage myself.

If you don't like Westbrook and his play style, that's fine, but don't try to be the "smartest person in the room" and stick so willfully to your guns after claiming the Thunder would be better with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook.

[Yoshun]

That's not what I'm debating. Westbrook is by far a better individual player. But as a teammate, leader and all round player, he's nowhere near the other guys. I'm a huge believer in chemistry, and the team game. High character guys are hugely valued, and help to build a proper team. Westbrook drove one of the greatest players the game has ever seen away from the team, that's all you need to know really. Watching Westbrook play makes my eyes bleed as a coach, even if he regularly does things that amaze and astound. He is a huge conundrum, especially for a coach. The Thunder's players are so incredibly under utilised playing next to Westbrook.

Again, this is just my opinion, and your entitled to yours as well. ONCE AGAIN, you have given me zero reason to change it.

I'm sorry I've been a jerk about all of this, but I just don't see any reason to give an argument in attempt to convince you to change your mind. The notion that OKC would've been better this year with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook is so absurd that there's really no reason to argue against it. Your argument is its own argument against itself due to its absurdity.

I'm not sure you could find one other poster on RealGM that would agree with you.

Fine, then if you can't counter it, run along. Go watch some highlight dunks of Russell.

Plenty of people have countered it, you're just choosing to ignore it.

George Hill managed just 4 more wins this season with a much stronger supporting cast, and he didn't fair much better with Paul George. There is no reason to think George Hill could go to OKC and make them a better team than Westbrook has. He is an inferior player with an inferior resume.

[ClubLakers KB8]

George Hill doesn't belong in this conversation. Seriously people?

[JazzUte88]

George had a very good year (when not injured), I am afraid we probably won't be able to afford him if we re-sign Hayward & Ingles. It would be interesting to see some of these other PG's getting the green light like that to shoot.

None of them would though. They are team orientated players, unlike the player in question.

And, unlike the player in question, none of them would sniff 47 wins if they replaced Westbrook on the Thunder this year.

Including George Hill.

You just said George Hill would make them a 50 win team?

In fact if people would read I said this team would be 32-36 wins with Hill.

[Coxy]

I'm sorry I've been a jerk about all of this, but I just don't see any reason to give an argument in attempt to convince you to change your mind. The notion that OKC would've been better this year with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook is so absurd that there's really no reason to argue against it. Your argument is its own argument against itself due to its absurdity.

I'm not sure you could find one other poster on RealGM that would agree with you.

Fine, then if you can't counter it, run along. Go watch some highlight dunks of Russell.

I'm not going to post on/off, +/-, BPM stats and raw stats because it'd laughably be in Westbrook's favor. I know the end result here, as does everyone else. Again, if this was an argument worth having, I'd engage myself.

If you don't like Westbrook and his play style, that's fine, but don't try to be the "smartest person in the room" and stick so willfully to your guns after claiming the Thunder would be better with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook.

Well it seems you are engaged, but can't disprove what I'm saying. You want to sight numbers and stats, fine, but you're missing the point. I'm calling out Westbrook's ability to maximise his teammates, and his character and leadership. You can't argue it, so your stuck.

This has been fun.

[NaturalThunder]

None of them would though. They are team orientated players, unlike the player in question.

And, unlike the player in question, none of them would sniff 47 wins if they replaced Westbrook on the Thunder this year.

Including George Hill.

You just said George Hill would make them a 50 win team?

I wasn't being serious. It was a jab at the poster who said the Thunder would be better if they replaced Westbrook with George Hill. It's nothing against Hill. I think he's a fine point guard.

[NaturalThunder]

None of them would though. They are team orientated players, unlike the player in question.

And, unlike the player in question, none of them would sniff 47 wins if they replaced Westbrook on the Thunder this year.

Including George Hill.

You just said George Hill would make them a 50 win team?

In fact if people would read I said this team would be 32-36 wins with Hill.

That post wasn't directed towards you. It was directed at Coxy.

[NaturalThunder]

Fine, then if you can't counter it, run along. Go watch some highlight dunks of Russell.

I'm not going to post on/off, +/-, BPM stats and raw stats because it'd laughably be in Westbrook's favor. I know the end result here, as does everyone else. Again, if this was an argument worth having, I'd engage myself.

If you don't like Westbrook and his play style, that's fine, but don't try to be the "smartest person in the room" and stick so willfully to your guns after claiming the Thunder would be better with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook.

Well it seems you are engaged, but can't disprove what I'm saying. You want to sight numbers and stats, fine, but you're missing the point. I'm calling out Westbrook's ability to maximise his teammates, and his character and leadership. You can't argue it, so your stuck.

This has been fun.

Take Westbrook and Hill this year and swap them, and take OKC's win total (47) and Utah's win total (51) and work from there.

How many games do you think OKC and the Jazz win if Westbrook and Hill swapped spots this season?

[Coxy]

I'm not going to post on/off, +/-, BPM stats and raw stats because it'd laughably be in Westbrook's favor. I know the end result here, as does everyone else. Again, if this was an argument worth having, I'd engage myself.

If you don't like Westbrook and his play style, that's fine, but don't try to be the "smartest person in the room" and stick so willfully to your guns after claiming the Thunder would be better with George Hill instead of Russell Westbrook.

Well it seems you are engaged, but can't disprove what I'm saying. You want to sight numbers and stats, fine, but you're missing the point. I'm calling out Westbrook's ability to maximise his teammates, and his character and leadership. You can't argue it, so your stuck.

This has been fun.

Take Westbrook and Hill this year and swap them, and take OKC's win total (47) and Utah's win total (51) and work from there.

How many games do you think OKC and the Jazz win if Westbrook and Hill swapped spots this season?

OK then, that depends. Is Westbrook going to demand the same usage? Is he going to calm down and fit into the system? Is he going to defer to Hayward as the number 1 scorer? Is he going to chase a triple double every game? Will he turn the ball over at an all-time rate?

If it's the same Westbrook, dare I say, Gobert might just about smack him in the mouth for chasing stats and not playing to maximize the talent in Utah. If Westbrook remained the same person and player with the Jazz, Utah's cast would be underutilised just like in OKC, and I don't know how they'd react. The leaving of his man to chase rebounds would still be a thing as well, which hurts the team.

It's a hypothetical that's too hard to judge due to the fact that the Jazz would be completely flipped from a defensive, team orientated unit to a 1 man iso show, and it's too hard to know how that would rub off on the Jazz franchise and players.

Let me throw it back at you, what do you think?

[DoubleO8]

No one else has the motor required

[BadWolf]

Well it seems you are engaged, but can't disprove what I'm saying. You want to sight numbers and stats, fine, but you're missing the point. I'm calling out Westbrook's ability to maximise his teammates, and his character and leadership. You can't argue it, so your stuck.

This has been fun.

Take Westbrook and Hill this year and swap them, and take OKC's win total (47) and Utah's win total (51) and work from there.

How many games do you think OKC and the Jazz win if Westbrook and Hill swapped spots this season?

OK then, that depends. Is Westbrook going to demand the same usage? Is he going to calm down and fit into the system? Is he going to defer to Hayward as the number 1 scorer? Is he going to chase a triple double every game? Will he turn the ball over at an all-time rate?

If it's the same Westbrook, dare I say, Gobert might just about smack him in the mouth for chasing stats and not playing to maximize the talent in Utah. If Westbrook remained the same person and player with the Jazz, Utah's cast would be underutilised just like in OKC, and I don't know how they'd react. The leaving of his man to chase rebounds would still be a thing as well, which hurts the team.

It's a hypothetical that's too hard to judge due to the fact that the Jazz would be completely flipped from a defensive, team orientated unit to a 1 man iso show, and it's too hard to know how that would rub off on the Jazz franchise and players.

Let me throw it back at you, what do you think?

We actually have a lot of data on how he looks with superior supporting cast.

Is Westbrook going to demand the same usage? look at years ast, he was in lw thirties, he'd stay there
Is he going to calm down and fit into the system? Somewhat, you adjust the system to your best player
Is he going to defer to Hayward as the number 1 scorer? You'd have to hope he wouldn't
Is he going to chase a triple double every game? Never really did before this year
Will he turn the ball over at an all-time rate? Always was a high turnover guy
Would jazz be better? Might scare the hell out of Warriors (haven't really watch them much, depends on how Favors, Hood etc work)

[NaturalThunder]

OK then, that depends. Is Westbrook going to demand the same usage? Is he going to calm down and fit into the system? Is he going to defer to Hayward as the number 1 scorer? Is he going to chase a triple double every game? Will he turn the ball over at an all-time rate?

If it's the same Westbrook, dare I say, Gobert might just about smack him in the mouth for chasing stats and not playing to maximize the talent in Utah. If Westbrook remained the same person and player with the Jazz, Utah's cast would be underutilised just like in OKC, and I don't know how they'd react. The leaving of his man to chase rebounds would still be a thing as well, which hurts the team.

It's a hypothetical that's too hard to judge due to the fact that the Jazz would be completely flipped from a defensive, team orientated unit to a 1 man iso show, and it's too hard to know how that would rub off on the Jazz franchise and players.

Let me throw it back at you, what do you think?

What do I think? That's not a very difficult question to answer. I think the Jazz, with Westbrook instead of Hill, would win 60ish games (or maybe I should say 55-60 games depending on health), and the Thunder with Hill instead of Westbrook would win 30-35 games, tops. It's not a difficult assumption to make, either. George Hill just "led" the Jazz (as their third best player) to 51 wins despite a rash of injuries to the Jazz all season. Replace him with Westbrook, and assume the Jazz still suffer the same number of injuries, I can't see any scenario in which Westbrook doesn't increase that win total by at least four to 55 wins. Westbrook just had a historically great season. Pretty much every advanced metric shows that he the Thunder were considerably worse with him on the bench. Take George Hill and replace him with Westbrook, and I think they lose about 10-15 more games. There's about 5ish games this season where it took a miraculous or borderline-miraculous comeback to pull out a win in the final seconds and almost 100% of the credit deserved to go to Westbrook. He did things in those wins that George Hill never, EVER would have any hope of doing on a basketball court.

You want me to post something to back up my belief that your claim that the Thunder would be better with George Hill is absurd, which itself is absurd. If this was an argument about "Russ or Curry?" or "Russ or CP3?" or "Russ or Harden?" or, heck, even "Russ or Wall?" or "Russ or Lowry?", then I'd feel compelled to provide stats, in-depth thought, and reason as to why I feel the way I feel. But since the gap betwen Russell Westbrook and George Hill as players is so comically large, I don't feel like I have to or need to waste my time.

[Bergmaniac]

Just checking - we are talking about the same George Hill who the Jazz got last summer for the 12th pick in a weak draft and who spent half the regular season injured, right?

[phanman]

Geez 7 pages with some posters debating/agreeing that George Hill would lead this OKC squad to more wins and be a better for them long term? Man the hate Westbrook has gotten has reached a new low.

I don't understand the notion that the guy is a bad leader. Or the fact that you guys say that his teammates don't enjoy sharing the court with the man. From the interviews and body language that I have seen everybody seems ecstatic to play with someone of his caliber. There has been statements that HE is the one holding the team back... and that is possibly the most preposterous thing I've ever read on these forums. Just because Durant decided to take the easy route to GSW, it doesn't make Russ a terrible human being/teammate. Contrary to popular belief, during their stint as teammates, Durant was the #1 option that lead the team in shots.

Snyder is a disciple of Pop, so I think he could fine tune Westbrook's game to fit into their defensive first mentality, and we'd see a monster of a player there. With George missing/injured for 33+ games, with Westbrook in his stead, your easily looking at a 60+ win. The plethora of shooters they have currently would be a godsend for Westbrook's ability to attack the paint and draw multiple defenders.

Hill on OKC would be a disaster.. They already no play makers and replacing with Westbrook with a combo guard like Hill would just be exasperating the problem. They'd be in competition with the Laker and Suns for the race to the bottom.