1st choice: Russell Westbrook
Honorable Mention: Alonzo MourningI loved watching Allen Iverson play. His style, his determination & his explosiveness were all captivating. The man had a relentless motor. He's on my all-time "favorite guys to watch" team - but he's not in my Top 50.
Watching him play, you can kind of tell, deep down in a place you don't totally want to admit that your ceiling is capped with him because of efficiency issues.
But what if, you could capture the competitive fire, never say die attitude, motor at max 100% of the time, reckless abandonment & "I can't wait to see this guy play" factor in a sabermetric friendly version? I present to you Russell Westbrook (full disclosure: my favorite player to watch in the league).
The advanced metrics actually love himOne of the biggest knocks on Westbrook is going to be around efficiency - his detractors are going to say that he wasn't an efficient player and that they have stylistic concerns about him. Some (but not all) of these metrics I'm going to present will somewhat over-state his impact. The point isn't to say he had the best season ever (like VORP will) - rather this is to illustrate that all the sabermetrics actually recognize his impact - and should dispel some efficiency concerns.
RAPM - he finished 4th in ESPN's RPM Wins each of the last 2 years, 7th in '15, and 13th in RPM in '14 and a strong "pre-prime" of being 21st in the chained RAPM from '08-'11.
VORP - Last year Russell Westbrook posted the highest single season VORP Score EVER.
BPM - Westbrook has finished 1st in this metric twice ('15 & '17) and holds 2 of the Top 10 scores EVER.
WS - FWIW, he already has more career Win Shares than Willis Reed - who has been in the last several run-offs. He's hit 13 WS + twice - of our remaining candidates from last round, Reed got there twice, Gasol once & Mutombo never.
PER - last time out he broke the 30 barrier. That's relevant because here is your list of guys who also have:
Steph Curry
Anthony Davis
Lebron James
Dwayne Wade
Tracy McGrady
Shaq
David Robinson
MJ
Chamberlain
That's an impressive group. Everyone else is in but Tmac & AD.
An ability to perform well against other elite guards when it mattersIn his lone encounter against Paul in the playoffs
Westbrook - 28/9/6 - 61% TS
Paul - 23/12/4 - 61% TS
vs. Steph in the playoffs:
Westbrook - 27/11/7 - 51.2% TS
Steph - 28/6/6 - 61.3% TS
vs. Wade in the '12 Finals:
Westbrook - 27/7/6 - 51% TS
Wade - 23/6/5 - 51% TS
vs. Harden in LY Playoffs:
Westbrook - 34/10/10 * not technically a triple double - rounding here - 51% TS
Harden - 32/7/6 - 57% TS - so much flopping - worse FG & 3PT%'s than Westbrook
Westbrook doesn't necessarily win all these matchups (2 are wins; 1's a draw & 1's a loss; but in EVERY matchup he competes and acquits himself well) - say what you will about Westbrook but you'll never see anything like this shameful performance:
Elephant in the room: Stylistics & KD I'll tackle the KD thing - why did he leave? I'll put it in KD's own words:
"he didn't like the organization or playing for Billy Donovan. His roster wasn't that good, it was just him and russ."
"imagine taking russ off that team, see how bad they were. Kd can't win a championship with those cats."
This wasn't a Westbrook issue - this is an org & Billy Donovan issue.
As for stylistics - I know Westbrook took a lot of flack for the style he played last year. But look at the mess Westbrook still got 10 apg with:
Then you have Oladipo - who is basically a homeless man's Westbrook - who somehow managed to shoot a worse TS% than Westbrook last year despite having minimal offensive gravity- as did Sabonis. You're only real offensive weapon - Enes Kanter - can't stay on the floor in the playoffs because of things like this:
I know Adams was there - but I feel like Adams usage rate was probably optimized last year. I want him scoring in the 12-15 PPG range on a high TS%. And that's sort of the point - in that situation, Westbrook probably optimized OKC's chances of winning.
This is a guy who is a strong playoff performer and is a very high efficiency guy who has had an incredibly high peak and already turned in 6 very high quality seasons & he hasn't had a BAD season yet. It's time for him to get some support.
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As a 2 Time DPOY winner, Alonzo Mourning is an elite defensive anchor. And we still have a few left who I'll give shout outs to in Mutombo, Wallace, Eaton & Thurmond.
The difference between Mourning & those guys is he really separates himself from them at the offensive end and I don't know if we recognize Mourning for the offensive impact he had.
Mourning was a 6 time 20 PPG scorer who shot between 56-59% TS in those years. His turnover efficiency isn't terrible either at a 15% rate. Mutombo hit the 15 PPG mark just once on worse efficiency than any of Mourning's 20 PPG years, Thurmond creates an offensive drag with his TS%'s - he only hit 50% once in his whole career despite the relatively high volume, & Eaton/Wallace are like playing 4 on 5 offensively.
In this
video, Mourning displays a strong ability to move up & down the court along with some competent post moves. He's not Olajuwon down there, but he's not Dwight either.
He has a clear impact on winning that's displayed in his whole career.
'93 - In Charlotte, the Hornets accelerate from 31 wins to 44 wins in his 1st year (note, Larry Johnson's development is probably worth at least a couple of those) as Mourning hits the close-out shot to eliminate Boston. Mourning is a 24-10 player in the playoffs to go with over 3 blocks.
'94 - Charlotte is 35-25 with Mourning in the lineup, just 6-16 without him. Larry Johnson's prime abruptly ends with injuries.
'95 - Mourning is the leading scorer on a team that becomes Top 10 in offensive efficiency and the team improves defensively. They make the playoffs. Mourning plays well in the series to Chicago, averaging 23 & 13; the Bulls don't have an answer for him.
'96 - Miami's roster has significant turnover so it's hard to attribute too much to one guy, but Mourning was brought in for Glen Rice among others & the Heat still improve by 10 wins. They jump defensively from +1.6 to -3.8.
'97 - Mourning anchors the #1 defense in the league as the Heat win 61 games. Miami makes the ECF.
'98 - Potentially a black mark if I'm being honest. The WOWY impact isn't great - 39-19 with, 16-8 without. Not a huge impact there. The Heat are upset in round 1 by the Ewing-less Knicks. This is the year where Johnson & Mourning get in a fight & JVG is clinging to Mourning's leg like an animal. Just a very strange series. It is noteworthy that Miami loses the game Mourning is suspended for in the series vs. NY.
'99 - Mourning leads the Heat to the #1 seed and finishes 2nd in the MVP voting. From a Mourning advocate perspective, you wish you could erase what happened in the playoffs
and you also wish he would've more thoroughly dominated Ewing but Ewing always played him tough. Still, Mourning had a great year as the defensive anchor on a team that had the best record in the East & was the lead scorer for a team that finished 2nd in offensive efficiency for the 2nd straight year.
'00 - Miami starts to get old. Mourning drags them to the Atlantic title again, finishing 3rd in the MVP Voting.They still can't get over the Knicks hump & Ewing is inexplicably still effective against Mourning.
The the kidney thing happens - but he still comes back after that as a highly valuable defensive role player & is critical in the FInals win over Dallas in '06. Even post-kidney disease, you still see him battling strong.
But the defensive impact - it never goes away.
There's a couple black marks in there - he gets slowed by post-prime Ewing in those Heat/Knicks series more than he should. In some of the Heat years, the WOWY impact is iffy.
But look - we're still talking a guy who was regarded as a Top 5 player multiple years, elite defensive anchor, good (not elite but good) offensive player who led winning teams all the way through and showed a tremendous amount of courage in battling back from kidney disease and exhibited outstanding intangibles - for whatever you value that. Anyone who is brought up is going to have some black marks - & if one of Mourning's biggest black marks is he got slowed by a mentor more than he should in the playoffs? I can live with that more than the warts of others. Even the longevity is better than you might think - 8 very strong years ('93-'00) another strong year ('02), 3 post-prime years as an excellent back-up center; others have better but given the kidney disease, it's better than you might think.