Russell Westbrook 20/21 thread

[JulesWinnfield]

Is there a Westbrook thread anywhere on this board this season? Because if there is I can’t for the life of me find it. I’m not going to argue that he has been anything close to amazing this year, but it’s crazy how numb we’ve become to the fact that this dude just casually averages triple doubles when 5 years ago no one thought we’d ever see someone do this in a season ever again post Oscar. He’s in the process of doing it for a 4th time.

He has led the Wizards in rebounds and assists in 14 consecutive games now, with Washington being 9-5 in that stretch and making their push for the play-in. He just became the first player in history with MULTIPLE triple doubles against every team in the NBA, and is certainly on his way to breaking Oscars record for career triple doubles early next season. Sone people may find the triple double stat arbitrary, or state that the way in which he attains it can be gimmicky, but there’s one guy who has done this in the last 50+ years and he’s on his way to doing it for a 4th time. It’s very hard to just casually dismiss this and become so utterly numb to it as we basically have. Again, I’m not going to sit here and paint him as a top 10 or even 20 player this season, but if I told you 5 years ago that someone would average a triple double 4 times in the next 5 seasons it would be thought of as just about the most outlandish assertion ever.

Post all star break he’s averaging 23.5 pts 12.3 Rebs and 12.3 ast (on a less than stellar 52.0 TS%). He’s picked it up from an extremely slow start and Washington has won 7 of their last 8 games. Strength of schedule gives them pretty damn good odds to get into this play-in as their remaining schedule is one of the easiest in the league.

I guess I don’t have a point in making this thread (aside from creating a space for Westbrook discussion as the wizards are picking up steam down the stretch here), but as arbitrary and as gimmicky as some may find the triple double feat I refuse to become so numb to it as to just ignore someone consistently doing something that none of us thought we would ever see, and frankly may not ever see by anyone other than him any time soon (even though a guy like Jokic has flirted and may flirt in the future)

[bondom34]

I've been following him some, mostly via following scores/twitter moreso. But he's been....pretty solid?

I'm not a huge box score counter, but he's made people numb to triple doubles and it's wild. Nobody thought this was possible 5 years ago even.

Started the year injured again, thought he was kinda done, and honestly made me sad to see him that unathletic (he legit couldn't dunk). But since late January or so he's been pretty good and the Wizards roster is pretty darn rough but between he and Beal they've gotten some improvement. He's not prime Westbrook but think he's maybe better than last year in Houston.

Don't know if Washington makes it (iirc they've been worse against worse teams), but he's been pretty solid, and I think by quite a few metrics as good/better than the Houston season.

Edit: From the season discussion thread

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Think most OKC fans still have a spot for him, always will.

[Pelly24]

I love the way Russ has battled back. He's been back at like, all-star level for the last two months, or month and a half. I thought he was done, but he's showing that he's still got life. I just wish he weren't on the Wizards and a playoff team took him. He deserves more than this. He's one of my favorite players ever and he doesn't get enough credit.

[penbeast0]

If you (or an NBA GM) think his value is positive, the Wiz would be willing to move him. I love his attitude but he's not young and the rest of the Wiz are.

[TroubleS0me]

outplayed Flurry

[Peregrine01]

It doesn't look like he's lost much speed and explosiveness. Maybe his motor isn't revving at 100 mph all the time but he's still insanely quick. His jumper has been completely gone though.

[Bergmaniac]

On some nights he looks almost as quick as explosive as in his prime, but on some nights he looks much slower. Not surprising given his age and injury issues. He's not getting to the rim nearly as much as he did in his prime or even last season, though of course last season was largely because of the extreme small-ball the Rockets played. Only 17.5% of his shots this year have been at the rim, by far the lowest figure of his career. The Wizards' mediocre spacing doesn't help too. The jumper comes and goes, but overall it's been only slightly worse from his career average.

Defensively he was a complete trainwreck early in the season, just no effort at all in the games I saw. He's still pretty bad, but has improved quite a bit on that end.

He's a turnover machine on offense though, which is one of the main reasons I don't expect the Wizards to make the playoffs.

One surprising thing is that he's been really good scoring wise in the clutch - 57% FG, 40.9% from 3 in the last 5 minutes of close games, and the Wizards have been really good in close games too.

[Homer38]

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[bondom34]

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And he did the meme.

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[JulesWinnfield]

37/11/11 on 14-23 shooting in a win at OKC. Wizards have won 7 in a row

[bondom34]

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His best 3 point shooting since the MVP (low bar but still), and recently think the turnovers have been down a bit. Tonight wasn't watching after the first half at some point but the Wizards couldn't stop turning it over....oddly enough he only had 3. No idea if it holds, or what it is other than health but it's been a really good stretch for him since a rough start and getting healthy.

I think of all guys getting Gafford was big for that team. They lost their starting C a few games into the year and having an extra NBA caliber big man is just really helpful. They're playing Len and had Mo Wagner for a bit and they were both cut by teams in need of big men. Still not a terribly good team, but playing a bit better. Going to be even tougher down another guy with Avidja out.

[eminence]

I don't understand why the Bulls gave Gafford away, decent young player.

[JulesWinnfield]

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[JulesWinnfield]

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They’re almost certain to make the play in tourney. 3 game cushion on Toronto and Chicago with 9 games left to play and a far easier schedule than both. They are 10-1 in their last 11 games with the lone loss coming in OT

[JulesWinnfield]

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You can say what you want about the arbitrary nature of the stat. Calling his pursuit a gimmick or whatever. But it’s worth noting how his teams win at an incredibly high rate when he does this. Even the wizards are 18-13 when he does it this year and 11-21 when he doesn’t

[bondom34]

Welp, have avoided bumping this before but I can't even with this. Like what the heck lol.

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He's been good, I think I feel pretty good just saying it. And as a fan from the OKC days it seems like he's doing some good for the team as well. Just a wild game.

Edit: Also apparently the first ever 20/20 game without points being one category.

And this might clarify the start to the season some:

Spoiler:

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[Texas Chuck]

You can say what you want about the arbitrary nature of the stat. Calling his pursuit a gimmick or whatever. But it’s worth noting how his teams win at an incredibly high rate when he does this. Even the wizards are 18-13 when he does it this year and 11-21 when he doesn’t

I wouldn't use the word pursuit because everything I understand about Russ tells me he isn't seeking trip doubs for the sake of it but just he's an all out kind of guy with an incredibly unique skill set that lends itself to this. Yeah he gets a lot of uncontested team rebounds but so does Luka and so did Kidd because they all understand the value of attacking transition D and are willing to be relentless in trying to attack it. We see the Ball brothers doing this on a lessor scale.

What happened is Russ starting doing this after the Thunder were finished as a championship contender and he doesn't play the "right" way for the NBA hipsters so they started a negative dialogue around him. Meanwhile players they love can have far less positive impact but continually get feted because they make a bunch of 3's.

Or look at Chris Paul. We have guys here tripping all over themselves to find anyone else to credit for the Suns' success because he doesn't play the way they have decided from the sidelines he "should" play. It's all silly. Makes me glad that I'm not smart enough to ever believe I could solve basketball so I don't have these arbitrary standards many do.

[JulesWinnfield]

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[penbeast0]

I don't care about the triple doubles that much (though I remember being enthused by Fat Lever getting them) but I care that Westbrook attacks the game every night. Wall trying to fight through his injuries had quit doing that and the team followed it's lead. Now they are following Westbrook, Beal is consistently outstanding offensively every night, and Rui Hachimura has developed into something I never expected, a good defensive 4.

[Bad Gatorade]

You can say what you want about the arbitrary nature of the stat. Calling his pursuit a gimmick or whatever. But it’s worth noting how his teams win at an incredibly high rate when he does this. Even the wizards are 18-13 when he does it this year and 11-21 when he doesn’t

I would note, however, that I'd expect every player with a high triple double count to have a better win/loss record in games they successfully achieve a triple double.

If Russ has 20 chances for a defensive rebound, and the opponent hits 40% of their shots, he gets 12 rebounds. If they sink 60% of their shots, Russ gets 8 rebounds. Note that in this hypothetical, Russ rebounds at the exact same rate, but his raw numbers change. If the opponent is shooting worse (which is strongly correlated with victory), then he's likely to get more rebounds. Ditto with assists - Russ can give his teammates 20 chances to score, but if they're not sinking shots, he's not hitting that 10th assist. The intent of playing a certain way shouldn't be the justification for playing a certain way. It's essentially a more complex version of, "Team X is more likely to win when Player Y scores 30 or more points."

I fully appreciate that Russ getting the rebound can be linked to greater transition proficiency. From what I've seen, it is true (although the numbers do jump around a bit from year to year, the overall trend is a positive one). What I don't like, is that people treat the rebounding numbers as a component of "dominance", when raw rebounding numbers are almost strictly based on role. In defensive rebounding +/- over the past five years (kind of like RAPM, but for rebounding), Russ ranks... 566th in the league, with -0.11. One would expect a guy averaging a triple double in that span to accrue better numbers, but he's beneath a heap of other PGs here, such as CP3, Steph, Rubio, Jrue. He's not bad/detrimental at rebounding, but the ~11 rebounds he gets per game are casually mentioned in slash lines all the time.

"Russ dropped 24/20/10!"

On 5/17 shooting, with 9 turnovers, and his rebounds are schemed.

I kind of hate the fact that Russ gets so many boards, and it's not because of "stat padding", because I honestly don't care about that in the slightest. It's the fact that Russ gets so many triple doubles (as a result of the rebound scheming) that instead of looking at Russ's good qualities as a player, he gets reduced to a slash line description, when Russ deserves to be treated as so much more than that.

Russ is an incredible athlete, with some of the fastest and most dynamic on-ball movement we've ever seen. He's a good man defender when he wants to be. He's got that natural 1-on-1 mind (where he follows the ball a bit too much) on both ends of the court, but he's also got some of the best timing on interior passes I've ever seen in a player. And even though he does fall out of position thanks to chasing the ball, he captures the loose ball quite a bit. He does sometimes blatantly stat pad for that 10th assist. His turnovers aren't much of an issue for me in general, given the havoc that he wreaks, but he's not as tight as some of the other elite PGs in the league. His shooting is spotty. He's still a good player once he gets into a groove during the season, but wear-and-tear has made him susceptible to some slow starts the past few seasons as he ages. His teammates generally speak well about him, and despite being snarky to reporters, he seems to have a well-grounded life off the court and be a very likable guy in general.

I don't know if people agree with all of these statements, but this is the sort of thing I wish people did with Russ, rather than simply look at his team record, paste his slash line and then comment on whether or not he's a stat padder, or he's still elite.