No-more-rings wrote:AEnigma wrote:You know what it means. The observation that Westbrook scales poorly alongside other stars relative to how he can produce in a 2015/17 scenario is not a concept you somehow avoided in all your years here.
What evidence is there that he scales poorly?
… Watching the games? He does not fit well next to any remotely ball dominant player, and even Durant was frequently an awkward fit. That is partly on Durant too, and Durant at least valued the attention teams had to devote to Westbrook, but all of that is base level. Does 2008 prove that Allen Iverson scales well?
2013: 2nd option to Durant- 60 wins staggering 9.15 SRS
2014: Injuries, I don't know where/how to determine their level of play when Westbrook and Durant were both playing, but I doubt it's any worse than 2013
2016: Already covered it
And this distinguishes him how. Yes, putting a great player next to an even better player on a good team gives pretty good results. Mindblowing analysis here.
Those years both were healthy, they lost a tough 6 game series to the Champion Spurs and tough 7 game series to 73 win GSW. Durant struggled in both of those series btw.
Maybe Durant would have struggled less if Westbrook were better.
Not sure where you're getting the idea that their regular season success doesn't translate as well to the playoffs.
… Have you tried considering their visible drop-off from the regular season.
Is Westbrook a perfect player? No. He has flaws like anyone else, but for some reason these days I guess we're just supposed to pretend that he didn't contribute to high level winning basketball in OKC and that he didn't have great success even though he falled short of a title.
You understand this project is comparative, right.
If we're going to make it this big deal that he failed to win a championship, then why are we discussing Cp3 and Nash so high up? Those guys didn't do any better in a secondary or 1b type role that I'm aware of.
Way to double down on expressing outright disdain for reading arguments for other players. Yes, neither won a title, that means they are the same.
Like it's become this vastly overstated talking point when we talk about superstars these days. It's a factor yeah, but it should be a tie-breaker when comparing with players on his level, not using it as a weapon to compare him to clearly inferior players just because they won a title like Walt or Isiah.
Would be cool if you could actually mount an argument for this “clear inferiority” beyond pointing to a big number and going, “See?????”
This isn't that dissimilar to the Wade criticism in regards to his portability, and ceiling raising. Wade got in at 18, and you were one to help get him in. What's so drastically different here? We know Wade plays better defense and has higher IQ, but there's still a few advantages for Westbrook as well like his passing/playmaking. He's more of a natural point guard than Wade which doesn't seem like a negative to me. Again, though what justifies them being ranked 23 spots or more apart? Is it because Wade got a title and Westbrook didn't?
Wade was a substantially better scorer and defender who although not doing so superbly understood and could commit to off-ball play in a way Westbrook never did or has. Unlike Westbrook he elevated his scoring in the postseason. For as low a bar as it is, he was probably a better shooter too, and for as
high a bar as it is, he is also probably a better (or at least more valuable via size) athlete.
The gap is because he was a substantially better player. This is an empty argument. You may as well rage about Jordan getting in at #1 and Kobe getting in at #19, even though Kobe had more range, more “moves”, and was a more talented passer. The titles are merely strong proof of concept, unless you somehow believe Westbrook could have possibly won those titles in Wade’s place.
AEnigma wrote:Do you think Karl Malone and Walt Frazier and Penny Hardaway were not.
Were their peaks ever compared to Durant's or Kawhi'? I would think not and for good reason of course.
Westbrook’s did not deserve to be compared to theirs either.
AEnigma wrote:Eight years past his peak, that would be quite the uphill climb. 2003 Kidd is a more interesting question, but I do suspect that much like Draymond his scoring inadequacies would end up being limiting on most rosters, and unlike Draymond he cannot provide all-time defensive anchoring.
Well these are sarcastic questions which I'm sure you know, but I'm asking because I'm not sure where we're supposed to rank Westbrook in your mind if his scalability is so very detrimental.
We? Yet to be determined. For my part, I do not think it is any sort of given that Westbrook peaked higher than point guards like Frazier or Penny or even D-Will, although yes he certainly did score a lot more often than they did. Guys like Westbrook or Iverson or Rose have substantial scoring value on teams which are desperate for a player to shoulder that load, but there are limited cases where that actually provides a feasible path to a title because their scoring effectiveness has serious limits.
Most of the time I do not want a team that would ask Westbrook to score thirty points a game, but if Westbrook is not doing that, what is his residual value? He is never doing much to provide space for teammates. Is his efficiency improving as his volume scales down? Is he learning to contribute off-ball? Is his defence picking up? The reason people are increasingly down on Westbrook’s peak/prime because of these post-peak/prime years is because now we know that the answer is a self-righteous “no”. The funny thing is that so many excuses used to be made for Westbrook on the Thunder, as if he were succeeding in spite of them, but with hindsight I think the extent to which they were entirely built around him becomes a lot more apparent.
AEnigma wrote:Yes I am trolling you, the Magic had an unforgivable -0.07 SRS while the 2017 Thunder had a dominant +1.14 SRS, so obviously there is no comparison.
Unless you think Penny's roster was equally bad or worse, there isn't much to discuss.
Which already tells me you are not even capable of having that discussion.
AEnigma wrote:Totally unrelated question: how did the Magic perform with Penny compared to how the Thunder performed with Westbrook, and how many games did Penny miss that season.
As if it's relevant, they went 10-13 without him, that doesn't sound like something Westbrook's team would've done without him. But I think you're wasting everyone's time with this comparison.
I think you are wasting everyone’s time by much like your compatriot f4p continuing to focus on random win/loss totals rather than on any real team analysis.
That said, your own metric says the Magic under Penny were better than the Thunder under Westbrook, so why exactly did you bring up their season SRS finishes.
AEnigma wrote:Getting a lot of f4p déjà vu here. Ignoring how this does not function as a response to the comparison with peak Penny, Frazier, or Karl Malone, why should I care about the conflation of a postseason “impact” edge for Westbrook with superior quality or ability.
You haven't made any case that I'm aware of as to why Westbrook's postseason play isn't better than those guys.
You might have picked up on it if you came in with any interest in reading those cases.
He is a poor defender whose scoring efficiency drops against postseason defences while already being inefficient from the outset. He does not adjust well over the course of a series, he plays sloppily, he cannot really fit with other ballhandlers, he would/does struggle to properly make use of cutters because teams do not really need to respect his shot… So again, what makes you think he has any real advantage over point guards who maintain and retain their value in the postseason across a variety of team circumstances?
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