The Russell Westbrook Thread: 2016-2017

[bondom34]

Ok so your trying to us bpm a boxscore metric with players who are know for there defense that makes a **** ton of sense. You can homer for Westbrook all you want but he only out played Harden for 4 and 5 at best and Harden squad he played with as starters were under whelming for games 1,2 and 3 the bench played well but that has no effect on what Harden was playing with.

Bev and Capela killed with DBPM. Houston's team played better than OKC's. Houston's star didn't.

DBPM is awful, the creator of the stat even says it's poor at capturing defense.

I don't disagree, but they did the same w/ DRPM all year, and the on/off splits for Bev were amazing.

Meh, other than getting to the line, rebounding and shooting 2's well, Harden did not play that well.

Too many turnovers, bad 3pt shooting, no defense, limited off the ball movement.

That's been the case all year. His box score numbers look good because of the efficiency but the impact is mediocre.

I don't know how Rockets fans who watched Harden in 2014-15 think this version is better.

Being able to score those kinda points is pretty nuts at that good of ts. Not to mention his play in last quarter of games has been huge it is important to be able to close games. Westbrook even when on a stacked team has had problems closing games and being high scorer with reasonable ts. I would take 30 plus on .597 ts to 511 any day on less shots need first option to score and be efficient. Harden i fell tad better then he was in 2014-2015 he getting tad overrated because how underrated he was from last year. I mean he was kinda on a down season but he was still putting up numbers on terrible offensive team and he was not going to beat GS with no one scoring. Either way well see how they do next round i do feel Harden has improved from years past.

But again TS =/= offense.

[homecourtloss]

at the very least this notion that russell westbrook is clutch needs to die..he's had ample opportunities to step up in the 4th quarter and he's been horrible as i've predicted all along

Lets look at Westy's stats in 4Q

FG% 28.5%
3pt% 19%
FT% 70%
TOV 7
AST 6
+/- -26

He was entirely spent leading hsi team in everything and to leads. He couldn't explode to the basket as well in 4th quarters as he did earlier in the games this series.

[bballexpert]

Bev and Capela killed with DBPM. Houston's team played better than OKC's. Houston's star didn't.

DBPM is awful, the creator of the stat even says it's poor at capturing defense.

I don't disagree, but they did the same w/ DRPM all year, and the on/off splits for Bev were amazing.

Meh, other than getting to the line, rebounding and shooting 2's well, Harden did not play that well.

Too many turnovers, bad 3pt shooting, no defense, limited off the ball movement.

That's been the case all year. His box score numbers look good because of the efficiency but the impact is mediocre.

I don't know how Rockets fans who watched Harden in 2014-15 think this version is better.

Being able to score those kinda points is pretty nuts at that good of ts. Not to mention his play in last quarter of games has been huge it is important to be able to close games. Westbrook even when on a stacked team has had problems closing games and being high scorer with reasonable ts. I would take 30 plus on .597 ts to 511 any day on less shots need first option to score and be efficient. Harden i fell tad better then he was in 2014-2015 he getting tad overrated because how underrated he was from last year. I mean he was kinda on a down season but he was still putting up numbers on terrible offensive team and he was not going to beat GS with no one scoring. Either way well see how they do next round i do feel Harden has improved from years past.

But again TS =/= offense.

Scoring at high ts is pretty big part of the offense most first option who are on title contenders score a lot on good efficiency. How is this not a big deal assist are great and running offense but if you are bulk scorer with under league ts it is problem. Can you name a star that carried teams to a title with below league ts who is a first options. Westbrook is no defense stopper so is offense is pretty important his scoring is as well and he has always been a low efficient scorer even when he was on stacked team the problem was there. Look at a lot of super stars of the past and through playoffs being able to score a lot while not missing over 60 percent of your shots is kinda of must. Not to mention closing games is a huge deal and he can not do it was not able to do is last year either. Westbrook has weak cast offensively but he had great offense team and still has had this problem.

[bballexpert]

DBPM is awful, the creator of the stat even says it's poor at capturing defense.

I don't disagree, but they did the same w/ DRPM all year, and the on/off splits for Bev were amazing.

Being able to score those kinda points is pretty nuts at that good of ts. Not to mention his play in last quarter of games has been huge it is important to be able to close games. Westbrook even when on a stacked team has had problems closing games and being high scorer with reasonable ts. I would take 30 plus on .597 ts to 511 any day on less shots need first option to score and be efficient. Harden i fell tad better then he was in 2014-2015 he getting tad overrated because how underrated he was from last year. I mean he was kinda on a down season but he was still putting up numbers on terrible offensive team and he was not going to beat GS with no one scoring. Either way well see how they do next round i do feel Harden has improved from years past.

But again TS =/= offense.

Scoring at high ts is pretty big part of the offense most first option who are on title contenders score a lot on good efficiency. How is this not a big deal assist are great and running offense but if you are bulk scorer with under league ts it is problem. Can you name a star that carried teams to a title with below league ts who is a first options. Westbrook is no defense stopper so is offense is pretty important his scoring is as well and he has always been a low efficient scorer even when he was on stacked team the problem was there. Look at a lot of super stars of the past and through playoffs being able to score a lot while not missing over 60 percent of your shots is kinda of must. Not to mention closing games is a huge deal and he can not do it was not able to do is last year either. Westbrook has weak cast offensively but he had great offense team and still has had this problem.

Also a big point that being left out is how much stronger thunder are on defense as a team compared to the Rockets. Harden had to score on much tougher team to score on still manged to get it done for most of the series.

[bondom34]

I don't disagree, but they did the same w/ DRPM all year, and the on/off splits for Bev were amazing.



But again TS =/= offense.

Scoring at high ts is pretty big part of the offense most first option who are on title contenders score a lot on good efficiency. How is this not a big deal assist are great and running offense but if you are bulk scorer with under league ts it is problem. Can you name a star that carried teams to a title with below league ts who is a first options. Westbrook is no defense stopper so is offense is pretty important his scoring is as well and he has always been a low efficient scorer even when he was on stacked team the problem was there. Look at a lot of super stars of the past and through playoffs being able to score a lot while not missing over 60 percent of your shots is kinda of must. Not to mention closing games is a huge deal and he can not do it was not able to do is last year either. Westbrook has weak cast offensively but he had great offense team and still has had this problem.

Also a big point that being left out is how much stronger thunder are on defense as a team compared to the Rockets. Harden had to score on much tougher team to score on still manged to get it done for most of the series.

Houston's DRTG was 1.5 worse than OKC's for the season. Not a massive gap.

And Westbrook closed games for an 82 game season. He had a bad 4 games of it. Harden's got a ton of offensive weapons and there's just way more than that to offense. Would be an interesting separate topic actually but ORPM has him trailing Westbrook as well. Sure, he can spam a foul call, but he turns it over worse percentage wise and hasn't had more impact offensively.

[thekdog34]

I agree a high TS% is very valuable. It just shows how bad Harden's defense and turnovers are that he can erode much of that impact.

[bballexpert]

Scoring at high ts is pretty big part of the offense most first option who are on title contenders score a lot on good efficiency. How is this not a big deal assist are great and running offense but if you are bulk scorer with under league ts it is problem. Can you name a star that carried teams to a title with below league ts who is a first options. Westbrook is no defense stopper so is offense is pretty important his scoring is as well and he has always been a low efficient scorer even when he was on stacked team the problem was there. Look at a lot of super stars of the past and through playoffs being able to score a lot while not missing over 60 percent of your shots is kinda of must. Not to mention closing games is a huge deal and he can not do it was not able to do is last year either. Westbrook has weak cast offensively but he had great offense team and still has had this problem.

Also a big point that being left out is how much stronger thunder are on defense as a team compared to the Rockets. Harden had to score on much tougher team to score on still manged to get it done for most of the series.

Houston's DRTG was 1.5 worse than OKC's for the season. Not a massive gap.

And Westbrook closed games for an 82 game season. He had a bad 4 games of it. Harden's got a ton of offensive weapons and there's just way more than that to offense. Would be an interesting separate topic actually but ORPM has him trailing Westbrook as well. Sure, he can spam a foul call, but he turns it over worse percentage wise and hasn't had more impact offensively.

Westbrook has always had trouble closing ps games the ones that matter to me it been a trend his whole playoff career which for most of it has been stacked as **** teams as well. Harden has his faults but i will take his ability to close games and be able to score at a high volume while being efficient not to mention he can run a elite offense as well.

[bondom34]

Westbrook has always had trouble closing ps games the ones that matter to me it been a trend his whole playoff career which for most of it has been stacked as **** teams as well. Harden has his faults but i will take his ability to close games and be able to score at a high volume while being efficient at doing not to mention not like he can run a elite offense as well.

Westbrook's run an elite offense his whole career. And Harden shot 35 and 35.5% in the clutch the last 2 years. I have no idea where he's been closing these games out so well, but it's not there. He's had a lower offensive impact than Westbrook this season by near every measure but TS. So again, we're back to square one.

[bballexpert]

Westbrook has always had trouble closing ps games the ones that matter to me it been a trend his whole playoff career which for most of it has been stacked as **** teams as well. Harden has his faults but i will take his ability to close games and be able to score at a high volume while being efficient at doing not to mention not like he can run a elite offense as well.

Westbrook's run an elite offense his whole career. And Harden shot 35 and 35.5% in the clutch the last 2 years. I have no idea where he's been closing these games out so well, but it's not there. He's had a lower offensive impact than Westbrook this season by near every measure but TS. So again, we're back to square one.

He sure seem to close up the 4th this year though and i will take it since he made a adjustment to do it. Westbrook has had the worst 4th quarters this playoffs they are historically bad and if going use teammate thing even with great teammates his closing is bad. Westbrook goes into idiot mode in last quarter of the game even when played with Durant he tunnels and cost him games his whole career in the playoffs. Harden has made a improvement to closing games Westbrook is just as bad if not worse.

[2klegend]

That's a weird conclusion from a series Harden was generally outplayed and who's team would have lost had this been the main matchup.

Thats just because Harden squad was not doing so great i mean Harden during the first few games could not have played better. 1-3 he played about as good as you can play and then had bad 4th and ok 5th game not to mention thunder better defense team which is not because of westbrook. The fact that Westbrook only shot 511 ts for this series against very average defensive team is more telling. I still take Harden scoring and on and off just tells me the team more balanced for rockets not that Westbrook better then Harden. Outside of Harden no one in starting squad played well through out the whole series how is that Harden fault.

Harden's whole team played well. OKC's 2nd scorer was Roberson.

Westbrook severely outplayed him every game after game 1, and Capela and Bev were both very good.

Dipo was awful, Adams bad, and again Roberson the 2nd leading scorer. Basically to conclude Harden played better your argument ends with "well he had a better TS".

You see, this is the problem. The blame game goes to his teammates. When you have one player dominated almost 50% of the every possession and accounted for half of the team fg attempts, what do you expect his teammates to do? They have no sense of rhymes and they're dependent on Westbrook which them into a coma on the floor. It's the same situation Kobe's Lakers was in back in 2006 but Westbrook took that '06 Kobe usage to a whole new level we have never seen before.

To be honest with you, the Harden vs Westbrook is a very intriguing comparison due to the fact both play EXACTLY the same role for their team and Harden intangible provides better impact for his team. And I believe that intangible assets is due to how he was able to control the game and being a better decision maker on the floor. Harden is providing a better balance for his team than Westbrook pure dominant, which back in the day we called those guys a "ball hog".

[Lost92Bricks]

The biggest testaments to how spectacular Westbrook's season has been is:

- Breaking the laws of MVP voting by most likely winning on a 6th seeded team
- Being the biggest topic of discussion in the same season as KD joining a 73 win team

I have to give him his props, I don't know how many players could've exerted the amount of energy and carried this team the way he has.

[bondom34]

To be honest with you, the Harden vs Westbrook is a very intriguing comparison due to the fact both play EXACTLY the same role for their team and Harden intangible provides better impact for his team. And I believe that intangible assets is due to how he was able to control the game and being a better decision maker on the floor. Harden is providing a better balance for his team than Westbrook pure dominant, which back in the day we called those guys a "ball hog".

Where were the intangibles when he was .500 last season? Could his teammates be shooting better because every last one of them is a better shooter? Because all of Westbrooks teammates got better when they started w/ him sans McDermott/Taj for a few games.

There's zilch evidence to this. Let's go player by player for OKC:
Adams: Fine, but not an offensively talented player.
Oladipo: Had a career best year for 3 point range and still not nearly the shooter Houston has. Never has been either.
Roberson: Really?
Sabonis: Rookie season.
Grant: Career 30 percent 3 point shooter.
Kanter: First offensively gifted player, can't stay on the court because of defense.
Christon: Late 2nd round draft pick. Played poorly in Italy. Played poorly in the D league. Played poorly now.

So your argument lacks substance. Harden's team was better because it had better players. His team performed better net rating wise when he was on the bench, because they were demolishing a weak bench of OKC full of players who frankly aren't terribly skilled. When both Harden and Westbrook were on court, Westbrook's team outscored Houston. So here we are, with the result and you find really nothing factual from your post.

[bondom34]

He sure seem to close up the 4th this year though and i will take it since he made a adjustment to do it. Westbrook has had the worst 4th quarters this playoffs they are historically bad and if going use teammate thing even with great teammates his closing is bad. Westbrook goes into idiot mode in last quarter of the game even when played with Durant he tunnels and cost him games his whole career in the playoffs. Harden has made a improvement to closing games Westbrook is just as bad if not worse.

?

Harden shot 35% from the field in the clutch this season. Westbrook for the RS was the best clutch player in the NBA.

[bballexpert]

He sure seem to close up the 4th this year though and i will take it since he made a adjustment to do it. Westbrook has had the worst 4th quarters this playoffs they are historically bad and if going use teammate thing even with great teammates his closing is bad. Westbrook goes into idiot mode in last quarter of the game even when played with Durant he tunnels and cost him games his whole career in the playoffs. Harden has made a improvement to closing games Westbrook is just as bad if not worse.

?

Harden shot 35% from the field in the clutch this season. Westbrook for the RS was the best clutch player in the NBA.

When did i say rs i been saying post season the playoffs in the clutch Westbrook has sucked in the clutch for most of his ps runs. Stop bring up rs i am talking about rs games post season games and how they are playing could careless about rs games.

[thekdog34]

Even watching Kanter or Oladipo try to create offensively was painful.

I would rather have Nene or Lou Williams.

Adams cannot post up effectively and doesn't seem to have good hands.

[thekdog34]

Thats just because Harden squad was not doing so great i mean Harden during the first few games could not have played better. 1-3 he played about as good as you can play and then had bad 4th and ok 5th game not to mention thunder better defense team which is not because of westbrook. The fact that Westbrook only shot 511 ts for this series against very average defensive team is more telling. I still take Harden scoring and on and off just tells me the team more balanced for rockets not that Westbrook better then Harden. Outside of Harden no one in starting squad played well through out the whole series how is that Harden fault.

Harden's whole team played well. OKC's 2nd scorer was Roberson.

Westbrook severely outplayed him every game after game 1, and Capela and Bev were both very good.

Dipo was awful, Adams bad, and again Roberson the 2nd leading scorer. Basically to conclude Harden played better your argument ends with "well he had a better TS".

You see, this is the problem. The blame game goes to his teammates. When you have one player dominated almost 50% of the every possession and accounted for half of the team fg attempts, what do you expect his teammates to do? They have no sense of rhymes and they're dependent on Westbrook which them into a coma on the floor. It's the same situation Kobe's Lakers was in back in 2006 but Westbrook took that '06 Kobe usage to a whole new level we have never seen before.

To be honest with you, the Harden vs Westbrook is a very intriguing comparison due to the fact both play EXACTLY the same role for their team and Harden intangible provides better impact for his team. And I believe that intangible assets is due to how he was able to control the game and being a better decision maker on the floor. Harden is providing a better balance for his team than Westbrook pure dominant, which back in the day we called those guys a "ball hog".

How are you measuring intangible impact? By wins? Because all the impact numbers we have show that Russ has been better since last year. I would probably say Harden was better prior (13-15).

[bondom34]

He sure seem to close up the 4th this year though and i will take it since he made a adjustment to do it. Westbrook has had the worst 4th quarters this playoffs they are historically bad and if going use teammate thing even with great teammates his closing is bad. Westbrook goes into idiot mode in last quarter of the game even when played with Durant he tunnels and cost him games his whole career in the playoffs. Harden has made a improvement to closing games Westbrook is just as bad if not worse.

?

Harden shot 35% from the field in the clutch this season. Westbrook for the RS was the best clutch player in the NBA.

When did i say rs i been saying post season the playoffs in the clutch Westbrook has sucked in the clutch for most of his ps runs. Stop bring up rs i am talking about post season games and how they are playing could careless about rs games.

Oh, well in that case, Harden's shot well in his last whopping 6 clutch PS performances. And in 2013 shot 37.5 percent. So in a 9 game sample (which again is incredibly small) he's been pretty good. But again, you're measuring player value now on 9 games.

I really don't have anything left to say, this is just me repeating myself. If you want to just use TS to measure offense, great. If you just want a 9 game sample, great. But if you're talking about who's had the greater impact, it's been Westbrook.

[2klegend]

To be honest with you, the Harden vs Westbrook is a very intriguing comparison due to the fact both play EXACTLY the same role for their team and Harden intangible provides better impact for his team. And I believe that intangible assets is due to how he was able to control the game and being a better decision maker on the floor. Harden is providing a better balance for his team than Westbrook pure dominant, which back in the day we called those guys a "ball hog".

Where were the intangibles when he was .500 last season? Could his teammates be shooting better because every last one of them is a better shooter? Because all of Westbrooks teammates got better when they started w/ him sans McDermott/Taj for a few games.

There's zilch evidence to this. Let's go player by player for OKC:
Adams: Fine, but not an offensively talented player.
Oladipo: Had a career best year for 3 point range and still not nearly the shooter Houston has. Never has been either.
Roberson: Really?
Sabonis: Rookie season.
Grant: Career 30 percent 3 point shooter.
Kanter: First offensively gifted player, can't stay on the court because of defense.
Christon: Late 2nd round draft pick. Played poorly in Italy. Played poorly in the D league. Played poorly now.

So your argument lacks substance. Harden's team was better because it had better players. His team performed better net rating wise when he was on the bench, because they were demolishing a weak bench of OKC full of players who frankly aren't terribly skilled. When both Harden and Westbrook were on court, Westbrook's team outscored Houston. So here we are, with the result and you find really nothing factual from your post.

Harden got better. It's that simple. He is getting more aggressive on the floor which unlike in his previous year when things don't go well Harden had a tendency to tune the game out. Now, not so much.

I don't think his teammates got better with Westbrook as much as they don't have a choice considering how the game revolve so much about him.

Like I said, I hear those excuses back in 2006 for Kobe fan so trust me, I understand. The fact of the matter is Westbrook insane usage is keeping back the development of OKC players and for some player, they are regressing due to that ball stoppage. That is the consequence of sacrificing to make room for Triple Double player. Harden's team is better. No debate here. But we need to stop acting like there is a huge separation. Harden's teammates are good, but not great to the point of a 4-1 win over OKC. Like I said, there is some intangible that stat can't measure accurately like when to take over game, when to make good basketball decision, when to effectively impact your teammates rhymes but at the same time provides a stable offensive lift. That balance is where Harden got it, and Westbrook don't.

[bondom34]

[


I don't think his teammates got better with Westbrook as much as they don't have a choice considering how the game revolve so much about him.

Except Westbrook's teammates got better. So you saying this isn't ringing true.

To top that off, some of Harden's shot worse this year. But them shooting worse was still better than Westbrook's shooting better.

This argument doesn't make sense.

[bballexpert]

?

Harden shot 35% from the field in the clutch this season. Westbrook for the RS was the best clutch player in the NBA.

When did i say rs i been saying post season the playoffs in the clutch Westbrook has sucked in the clutch for most of his ps runs. Stop bring up rs i am talking about post season games and how they are playing could careless about rs games.

Oh, well in that case, Harden's shot well in his last whopping 6 clutch PS performances. And in 2013 shot 37.5 percent. So in a 9 game sample (which again is incredibly small) he's been pretty good. But again, you're measuring player value now on 9 games.

I really don't have anything left to say, this is just me repeating myself. If you want to just use TS to measure offense, great. If you just want a 9 game sample, great. But if you're talking about who's had the greater impact, it's been Westbrook.

I only care about what a player does in the ps about 80 percent of the time. When i rate players i look at how they do in the ps because in the end the only games that matter are in ps to me anyway. Westbrook when comes to playoffs is bad in clutch and shoot like **** in ps almost every year he plays. Harden at least showed he close out ps games and scores at great efficiency in playoffs. If you play bad in the ps then your pretty useless if you are star that is were you make your name at.