hardenASG13 wrote:I used to be an OKC fan, and remember arguing for years with basically the whole OKC board, who knocked my "eye test" saying playing Andre Roberson 30 minutes a game, when he couldn't shoot or dribble a basketball, was crazy. Especially next to KD and Westbrook. I was mocked for saying things like it was killing the spacing, and that shooting role players are what that and every team needed. They gave a bunch of lineup stats, said all I cared about was "pointzz" and didn't know what I was seeing. Said guys like Jerami Grant were scrubs because of percentages. Now they don't let me post there and aren't willing to discuss it, although it certainly seems like the complete direction the league has gone. But the stats didn't agree. I wonder why more contending teams aren't playing bums like Roberson 30mpg anymore in the corner next to their superstar creators? Don't they see the lineup numbers and how important individual perimeter defense is, in a league that is forced to switch almost every perimeter screen haha.
Those that just post stats and spend hours compiling them are often just trying to look smart, with no ability to understand what they are watching. Many here also put way too much into regular season stats, when it's quite clear that the playoffs are a whole different beast. You need an eye test to see what players and concepts will work in the playoffs, when the defense knows exactly what you are running and how to take it away.
I'm not sure why you think this point is conclusive. Andre Roberson types not playing in 2024 isn't a definite argument agaisnt Andre Roberson's value in 2017 (the only year he played 30mpg). Yes, of course, 2-way players are more valuable than 1-way players, but if your argument was that OKC should play an offense only guy (Dion Waiters or Anthony Morrow) way bigger minutes than Roberson...I do think you were wrong about that.
Andre Roberson had an absolutely elite skill set on defense. For all the handwringing over him, there's actually only 1 year that Roberson played real minutes (22.2mpg) on a healthy KD/Russ team (2016). The year before, KD was out injured, the year after, KD was gone, and before all of this Roberson wasn't a rotation player.
So his one real year where this was a question (2016)...OKC won 59 games, had a top 6 offense and a top 6 defense, went to the Western Conference Finals where they took the 73-win Warriors to 7 games. I'm sure there were lots of possessions where Andre Roberson couldn't do anything on offense that had your eye-test screaming. But how was your eye-test on the other end where Roberson was doing all the perimeter heavy lifting as the best defender on a top 6 defense.
Dion Waiters played more minutes than Roberson (though in the playoffs Waiters minutes came down and Roberson's came up) and both of them got tons of minutes with KD/Russ. With Roberson (no Waiters), the team offense was very good and the team defense was elite. With Waiters (no Roberson), the team offense would become super elite, but the defense would go in the tank.
Forget the numbers though, I question your eye test analysis since you're basically saying you only watch one side of the ball. Waiters (and Morrow) were bad defenders. There was a real cost to playing them. There was a real cost to playing Roberson too, but are you saying you can't see the benefit of playing a multi-positional giant perimeter defender who can also protect the rim?
