Westbrook's future

[slick_watts]

And honestly you can go stat geek all you want, but I find it interesting that you claim the only thing Westbrook did as well as Roy was steal the ball. Mean while he also rebounded better and handed out more assists.

ok. let's discuss rebounding. i was wrong when i stated that rebounding is not meaninful in this comparison, since one thing that russell westbrook does inordinately well is get offensive rebounds. westbrook grabbed 6.8% of all offensive rebound chances, and that's a lot for a guard, and probably is the best rate on the whole team. westbrook is actually a worse defensive rebounder than roy was, but his offensive rebounds push him ahead overall in this regard.

that said,

Of course you just gloss over the fact that he is a better rebounder like it doesn't contribute to the game. As Charles Barkley once said, "You can't score unless you have the ball".

it contributes to the game, but the rebounding overall is a slight difference between the players (except offensive rebounds). it certainly comes nowhere near making up for the huge differences in the pertinent guard metrics.

the fact that westbrook 'hands out more assists' is deceptive and does not tell the whole story, and it's not about being a stat geek, it's common sense. assists are a statistic that is part of a larger measurement: ball handling. an appropriate analogue would be points per game being part of scoring [efficiency]. a player who contributes 20 points per game on 15 shots is almost always worth more as a scorer than a player who scores 22 points on 20 shots. even though one player is scoring more points per game, he's wasting more team possessions to do so, usually to the detriment of the team. most people understand this concept.

similarly, russell westbrook wastes a lot of possessions in order to put up his assist numbers. more precisely, for every 1.6 assists he hands out he turns the ball over, resulting in a wasted possession, and often a fast break opportunity for the other team. there is nothing worse than a turnover in the nba, as it will always result in an extra possession for the other team, and often an easy bucket or free throws. this is why in many composite statistics turnovers are so costly, and it is one of the main reasons russell westbrook's PER is so low despite what might appear as pretty good volume production.

even without looking at statistics, if you watched westbrook play this season he was a selfish player. he took many difficult shots and generally played a wild brand of basketball. this tendency is clearly reflected in the statistics. the fact that he averaged more assists than brandon roy did as a rookie is immaterial.

to go one step further, take a look at mike bibby. mike bibby averaged 5.0 assists this year for the hawks. russell westbrook averaged 5.9 assists for the thunder. what does that tell you about the players? it doesn't tell you anything, really. looking deeper at the entire 'ball handling' picture, you see that mike bibby only commited 1.6 turnovers a game to every 5.0 assists. mike bibby facilitated offense without 'giving it back' to the opposition. nobody in their right mind would consider russell westbrook a better point guard, ball handler, or assist man than mike bibby was this year. the same could easily be said when comparing brandon roy's rookie season with westbrook's.

wiff, i like russell westbrook. he's a dynamic player who, if he can solve a lot of his problems on the court, could be a really unique point guard. even if he doesn't make it, i think he has a shot of being a great shooting guard. but please let's get real about what he did on the court in his rookie season.

[wiff]

And honestly you can go stat geek all you want, but I find it interesting that you claim the only thing Westbrook did as well as Roy was steal the ball. Mean while he also rebounded better and handed out more assists.

ok. let's discuss rebounding. i was wrong when i stated that rebounding is not meaninful in this comparison, since one thing that russell westbrook does inordinately well is get offensive rebounds. westbrook grabbed 6.8% of all offensive rebound chances, and that's a lot for a guard, and probably is the best rate on the whole team. westbrook is actually a worse defensive rebounder than roy was, but his offensive rebounds push him ahead overall in this regard.

that said,

Of course you just gloss over the fact that he is a better rebounder like it doesn't contribute to the game. As Charles Barkley once said, "You can't score unless you have the ball".

it contributes to the game, but the rebounding overall is a slight difference between the players (except offensive rebounds). it certainly comes nowhere near making up for the huge differences in the pertinent guard metrics.

the fact that westbrook 'hands out more assists' is deceptive and does not tell the whole story, and it's not about being a stat geek, it's common sense. assists are a statistic that is part of a larger measurement: ball handling. an appropriate analogue would be points per game being part of scoring [efficiency]. a player who contributes 20 points per game on 15 shots is almost always worth more as a scorer than a player who scores 22 points on 20 shots. even though one player is scoring more points per game, he's wasting more team possessions to do so, usually to the detriment of the team. most people understand this concept.

similarly, russell westbrook wastes a lot of possessions in order to put up his assist numbers. more precisely, for every 1.6 assists he hands out he turns the ball over, resulting in a wasted possession, and often a fast break opportunity for the other team. there is nothing worse than a turnover in the nba, as it will always result in an extra possession for the other team, and often an easy bucket or free throws. this is why in many composite statistics turnovers are so costly, and it is one of the main reasons russell westbrook's PER is so low despite what might appear as pretty good volume production.

even without looking at statistics, if you watched westbrook play this season he was a selfish player. he took many difficult shots and generally played a wild brand of basketball. this tendency is clearly reflected in the statistics. the fact that he averaged more assists than brandon roy did as a rookie is immaterial.

to go one step further, take a look at mike bibby. mike bibby averaged 5.0 assists this year for the hawks. russell westbrook averaged 5.9 assists for the thunder. what does that tell you about the players? it doesn't tell you anything, really. looking deeper at the entire 'ball handling' picture, you see that mike bibby only commited 1.6 turnovers a game to every 5.0 assists. mike bibby facilitated offense without 'giving it back' to the opposition. nobody in their right mind would consider russell westbrook a better point guard, ball handler, or assist man than mike bibby was this year. the same could easily be said when comparing brandon roy's rookie season with westbrook's.

wiff, i like russell westbrook. he's a dynamic player who, if he can solve a lot of his problems on the court, could be a really unique point guard. even if he doesn't make it, i think he has a shot of being a great shooting guard. but please let's get real about what he did on the court in his rookie season.

I fully understand the idea in which Westbrook's turnovers hurt the team and I'm not arguing that. And I fully understand about your point with Bibby.

In fact I'll make another comparison with Bibby.

When Sacramento traded Jason Williams (who at the time led the league in turn overs) for Mike Bibby, the Kings went from a fun team to watch to one of the leagues best teams.

And of course when White Chocolate stopped turning the ball over he simply became J Will and by that time he was in Memphis and no one watched Memphis or cared about J Will anymore.

I get that turnovers and bad shots cripple a team and Westbrook had too many on both accounts.

But Westbrook can do a few things that very few PG can do in the league. He gets to the rack at will and he is a tremendous rebounder for a PG.

And he did some things that are good for a pg. He still managed to get 5.3 assists. Plus he gets a fair amount of steals.

Obviously what we are going back and fourth about are his turnovers and his FG%/shot selection.

I guess I look at Russell with the glass half full.

These are all the things that he can do well, yada yada yada... now if he can just work on his jumper and play more controlled and keep the turnovers down he looks to be in Roy's neighborhood.

Of course Russell has his work cut out for him but (and to me this is a huge but), he has two more years to work on his jumper and hang on to the ball more before we can really compare the two on an even playing field.

Because it isn't really fair to Russell to compare him to a guy who was two years older than him during his rookie year.

But to me the fact that Russell is two years younger than Roy is huge especially when you look at where Russell was three years ago.

[Clangus]

Westbrook's assist to turnover rate would be infinitely better if some folks on this team could make a freaking shot. I can count almost 2-3 times a game where a Collison, Watson, Wilkins, and even Krystic miss bunnies that on most teams would get you benched. Assists are over-rated TO A DEGREE because it depends on others too much. Turn-overs are an issue, but as mentioned he improved that over the course of the year,and that to the fact he's 20 playing PG for the first time ever.

Slick as you and I both know you can find stats to support and refute any argument. Watching the game tells you a whole lot more that stats can. I dont think you will argue that RW had a great year, was dynamic and showed the ability to impact a game in a fashion alot of players never do. The fact is that Westbrook DID put up similar stats to BRoy in alot of instances, but honestly, if Westbrook falls short of becoming a BRoy type of player I wont be disappointed. Roy is one of the top 5-7 players in the league. IMO.

I think that the fact he had such a great year has made everyone judge him more harshly than if he had of put up something average.
He has oboiusly exceeded most expectations. That's where I shall choose to focus - On how well we did selecting him, and how well he did play. Not ask myself "why isn't he as good as a 22 year old Brandon Roy.

[slick_watts]

These are all the things that he can do well, yada yada yada... now if he can just work on his jumper and play more controlled and keep the turnovers down he looks to be in Roy's neighborhood.

i can understand the excitement about westbrook because of the way he plays. he's so aggressive and athletic that it's fun to say "if he can work on his jumper and control himself..". but if you look around at point guards as rookies (much less brandon roy), very, very few of them are both as inefficient scoring the ball and inefficient handling the ball as westbrook was this year. my whole point in this discussion is that westbrook was not just in the "eh.. he just has to control himself" category of bad, he was pretty much as bad at those things as any rookie i could find in the past five years. westbrook can get all the rebounds and steals he wants, he's going to have to improve drastically, beyond any precedent i can find, in order to be in brandon roy's neighborhood as a basketball player. it is just what it is.

Westbrook's assist to turnover rate would be infinitely better if some folks on this team could make a freaking shot. I can count almost 2-3 times a game where a Collison, Watson, Wilkins, and even Krystic miss bunnies that on most teams would get you benched. Assists are over-rated TO A DEGREE because it depends on others too much. Turn-overs are an issue, but as mentioned he improved that over the course of the year,and that to the fact he's 20 playing PG for the first time ever.

these things usually normalize in the long run, but westbrook's teammates probably have some kind of effect on his numbers. the fact that he's 20 playing PG for the first time ever is a nice excuse for his performance, but the question must be asked if PG is the right position for him in the long run? i think that you have to keep him there because the reward would be great if he "figures it out", but as i described in a previous post westbrook was worse handling the ball than any rookie point guard i could find in the past five years.

Slick as you and I both know you can find stats to support and refute any argument. Watching the game tells you a whole lot more that stats can. I dont think you will argue that RW had a great year, was dynamic and showed the ability to impact a game in a fashion alot of players never do. The fact is that Westbrook DID put up similar stats to BRoy in alot of instances, but honestly, if Westbrook falls short of becoming a BRoy type of player I wont be disappointed. Roy is one of the top 5-7 players in the league. IMO.

statistics cannot be properly used to support the argument that westbrook was anywhere near brandon roy's neighborhood in their respective rookie years. of course, if you take an extremely narrow view and just look at a couple volume stastics, then you can make a few cases here and there. that is, however, not the fault of the stastics, it's the fault of the person interpreting him. westbrook falls far short of brandon roy any way you cut it.

as i also stated previously, i watched westbrook all year and i saw an out of control, overly aggressive player that did not seem to understand the nuances of his position. he certainly had some outstanding moments, and he's got a unique brand of athletisism to bring to the point guard positious. there is no doubt about that. i'm just asking that you look at westbrook's year objectively for what it was. he was simply not a very good ball handler.

I think that the fact he had such a great year has made everyone judge him more harshly than if he had of put up something average.
He has oboiusly exceeded most expectations. That's where I shall choose to focus - On how well we did selecting him, and how well he did play. Not ask myself "why isn't he as good as a 22 year old Brandon Roy.

i agree he had a great year. he showed a lot of things that will make him successful as an nba player, and possibly even a star player. i am not arguing that. there is a lot of potential here. but potential is not the same as performance, and does not factor into comparing roy and westbrook's rookie years. it's pretty clear statistically and otherwise that roy was far superior as a rookie, i guess i just have to leave you guys to your position.

lastly, in hindsight, i certainly wouldn't have minded brook lopez with that 4th pick.

[wizkid27]

Although it is hard to compare Westbrook and Roy (and ultimately fairly pointless as they play two very different roles for two very different teams), I'll throw a few stats out there to support Westbrook. I by no means am saying that Westbrook is as good as Roy now, or will be, or whatever, but just putting out some numbers to keep an interesting discussion of his point guard prospects going.

Ultimately bball is about outscoring the other team, so points for/against per 100 possessions on/off ratings are some of my favorite to illustrate player effectiveness.

This year, the Thunder were 4.1 points per 100 possessions better when Westbrook was on the court (outscored their opponents by 4.1 points more for every 100 possessions that he was on the court vs when he was off... actually were outscored by 4.1 points less per 100 possessions, as the other teams on average outscored the Thunder)
By comparison, in Roy's rookie year, the Blazers were actually a negative 1.5 when he was on the court (got beat by more when he was on the court than off).
Both of these stats have a very good sample size on both sides of the fence as both players played a substantial amount of minutes, but not over two thirds. So, what this says, is that ultimately, Roy being on the court hurt his team more than helped them, whereas Westbrook was easily the best of the starters on the Thunder team (Durant and Green come in at a sad -8.4 and -2.8 respectively).

The other stat I'll put on the table is the players' 82games passing ratings from this season. Roy checks in at 8.4 and Westbrook at 10.5. This takes into account the type of assists (for 3's, dunks, etc.), the number of assists, and how many of the players' turnovers came from bad passes specifically. This gives a good idea of how good a player is at solely setting up his teammates for shots and delivering the ball to them (doesn't take into account dribbling turnovers, charges, etc.)

At the end of the day, Westbrook is a great player and I'm glad that we drafted him. He's got flaws in his game that he needs to address. Most of them have to do with slowing the game down and playing under control. I think this is something (especially for a guy who hasn't always played point) that will come with time (not even necessarily by hard work, but just maturity). I'm glad we didn't take Lopez as of now, because I don't think that he would work well with Green and Durant... I would much rather see Westbrook at point and Krstic at center than Lopez at center and umm, Watson? at point. We'll see what we do in the draft though

[slick_watts]

This year, the Thunder were 4.1 points per 100 possessions better when Westbrook was on the court (outscored their opponents by 4.1 points more for every 100 possessions that he was on the court vs when he was off... actually were outscored by 4.1 points less per 100 possessions, as the other teams on average outscored the Thunder)
By comparison, in Roy's rookie year, the Blazers were actually a negative 1.5 when he was on the court (got beat by more when he was on the court than off).
Both of these stats have a very good sample size on both sides of the fence as both players played a substantial amount of minutes, but not over two thirds. So, what this says, is that ultimately, Roy being on the court hurt his team more than helped them, whereas Westbrook was easily the best of the starters on the Thunder team (Durant and Green come in at a sad -8.4 and -2.8 respectively).

i really hate +/- and how it's being used in the nba right now. i think westbrook's +/- is more an inidication of how bad okc's backup guards were this year than how effective westbrook was on the court. +/- is useful to determine which lineups work better than others and work out subsitutions but it stinks when comparing players, especially on different teams. it's an excellent team statistic, but i fail to see how useful a statistic is that shows westbrook as more valuable than durant by an order of magnitude. that doesn't pass the eyes test for me. this team doesn't win 10 games without durant in the lineup.

cross team +/- comparisons also would suggest kevin durant is basically useless, tim duncan is less useful than boris diaw, and jeff foster is about equal to pau gasol. this is a 'blind' statistic that doesn't seem to be consistent at all when comparing players on different teams. using it to compare roy to westbrook in this manner is mis-using the statistic.

The other stat I'll put on the table is the players' 82games passing ratings from this season. Roy checks in at 8.4 and Westbrook at 10.5. This takes into account the type of assists (for 3's, dunks, etc.), the number of assists, and how many of the players' turnovers came from bad passes specifically. This gives a good idea of how good a player is at solely setting up his teammates for shots and delivering the ball to them (doesn't take into account dribbling turnovers, charges, etc.)

i'd hope that westbrook's passing rating is higher than roy's as a rookie, since he is a point guard and roy was shooting guard. this statistic has a 'volume' bias and is not normalized. do you really think earl watson was the fourth best passer in the league this year? i don't.

do you guys really think westbrook was that far off from roy's rookie year?

At the end of the day, Westbrook is a great player and I'm glad that we drafted him. He's got flaws in his game that he needs to address. Most of them have to do with slowing the game down and playing under control. I think this is something (especially for a guy who hasn't always played point) that will come with time (not even necessarily by hard work, but just maturity). I'm glad we didn't take Lopez as of now, because I don't think that he would work well with Green and Durant... I would much rather see Westbrook at point and Krstic at center than Lopez at center and umm, Watson? at point. We'll see what we do in the draft though

i like westbrook and i think he'll put it together one way or another, whether that's at point guard or not. i really just can't fathom this brandon roy comparison..

[Clangus]

statistics cannot be properly used to support the argument that westbrook was anywhere near brandon roy's neighborhood in their respective rookie years. of course, if you take an extremely narrow view and just look at a couple volume stastics, then you can make a few cases here and there. that is, however, not the fault of the stastics, it's the fault of the person interpreting him. westbrook falls far short of brandon roy any way you cut it.

Simply not true.
You are using your assist to turnover stat to backup the fact that he was worse. However there are catagories where RW was better than Roy- which you choose to refute with what seems to you like a logical arguement, however, you also take other stats and label them as less important (off reb's, age, system etc ) all these things contribute not just the stats you choose to focus on. Focus = Reality? This is ALL about the way you "cut it".

Edit*

And after posting this I read your reply above to another poster and refuting their stats.
You have chosen to say that those stats are meaningless. Yet believe that the ones you show have more weight and gravity? Certainly +/- is not a perfect stat, but it has its uses. just like assist /turnover. which of course doesn't take into account "rookie calls", team-mates dropping passes, offensive fouls etc etc. Again you see what you want to.

[slick_watts]

Simply not true.
You are using your assist to turnover stat to backup the fact that he was worse. However there are catagories where RW was better than Roy- which you choose to refute with what seems to you like a logical arguement, however, you also take other stats and label them as less important (off reb's, age, system etc ) all these things contribute not just the stats you choose to focus on. Focus = Reality? This is ALL about the way you "cut it".

it's not just assist to turnover statistic, it's every individual measurement. russell westbrook gets offensive rebounds and gets more assists (volume) than brandon roy did. that's about it. "age" is not a statistic, neither is "potential". PER is not a perfect be all end all statistic, and when comparing players close in performance it can be misleading. but there is a 3.8 gap in PER between the players, that is significant, and shows a clear difference in individual performance.

it's not "my" reality either. it's how statistics are used. offensive rebounds are nice, but i'm sure 99.9% of coaches, gm's, and fans would prefer a guard that can competently take care of the ball and shoot efficiently than one that gets a few offensive rebounds a game. the same can be said of a power forward; you would be happy if your center crashed the boards, his assist totals are generally less relevent. this is how players are evaluated.

And after posting this I read your reply above to another poster and refuting their stats.
You have chosen to say that those stats are meaningless. Yet believe that the ones you show have more weight and gravity? Certainly +/- is not a perfect stat, but it has its uses. just like assist /turnover. which of course doesn't take into account "rookie calls", team-mates dropping passes, offensive fouls etc etc. Again you see what you want to.

i didn't say those statistics are meaningless. if you can find meaning in cross team, individual +/- comparisons please shed some light for me. why is jeff foster the same as pau gasol? why is kevin durant among the worst starters in the nba? again, +/- is a "blind" statistic, it's kind of like looking at the score at the end of the game and saying all the players on the winning team are better than the losing team.

statistics are not meaningless, and they don't tell the whole story to be sure. they are helpful though, and brandon roy is so far beyond russell westbrook in many categories that the overall picture is pretty clear. someone who does not watch the thunder could look at the numbers wesbtrook put up and accurately describe him as a selfish, turnover-prone, guard. wouldn't they be right?

put this up on the player comparison board and see what the general realgm populous has to say about the matter.

[Clangus]

Simply not true.
You are using your assist to turnover stat to backup the fact that he was worse. However there are catagories where RW was better than Roy- which you choose to refute with what seems to you like a logical arguement, however, you also take other stats and label them as less important (off reb's, age, system etc ) all these things contribute not just the stats you choose to focus on. Focus = Reality? This is ALL about the way you "cut it".

it's not just assist to turnover statistic, it's every individual measurement. russell westbrook gets offensive rebounds and gets more assists (volume) than brandon roy did. that's about it. "age" is not a statistic, neither is "potential". PER is not a perfect be all end all statistic, and when comparing players close in performance it can be misleading. but there is a 3.8 gap in PER between the players, that is significant, and shows a clear difference in individual performance.

it's not "my" reality either. it's how statistics are used. offensive rebounds are nice, but i'm sure 99.9% of coaches, gm's, and fans would prefer a guard that can competently take care of the ball and shoot efficiently than one that gets a few offensive rebounds a game. the same can be said of a power forward; you would be happy if your center crashed the boards, his assist totals are generally less relevent. this is how players are evaluated.

And after posting this I read your reply above to another poster and refuting their stats.
You have chosen to say that those stats are meaningless. Yet believe that the ones you show have more weight and gravity? Certainly +/- is not a perfect stat, but it has its uses. just like assist /turnover. which of course doesn't take into account "rookie calls", team-mates dropping passes, offensive fouls etc etc. Again you see what you want to.

i didn't say those statistics are meaningless. if you can find meaning in cross team, individual +/- comparisons please shed some light for me. why is jeff foster the same as pau gasol? why is kevin durant among the worst starters in the nba? again, +/- is a "blind" statistic, it's kind of like looking at the score at the end of the game and saying all the players on the winning team are better than the losing team.

statistics are not meaningless, and they don't tell the whole story to be sure. they are helpful though, and brandon roy is so far beyond russell westbrook in many categories that the overall picture is pretty clear. someone who does not watch the thunder could look at the numbers wesbtrook put up and accurately describe him as a selfish, turnover-prone, guard. wouldn't they be right?

put this up on the player comparison board and see what the general realgm populous has to say about the matter.

+/- stats have their use because it measures things that are not in the stats sheet. Jeff foster is rated high because he does the little things. He hustles, he rebounds, he plays solid defense, he's a glue guy.Those things are not measured in the box score (Rebounds are but you get my meaning). I assume you read the Shane battier story from the main board a few weeks ago.....
Kevin Durant is low because the team won only 23 games, and he was the main offensive focus, of course he is going to be low. The Thunder did go above .500 for the week or so he was out lets not forget. Durant is our superstar though and I wouldn't want any other player as "the franchise".

Offensive rebounding is a great stat, not just nice. They give you another possession. RW averaged 2.2 a game. That's 2.2 more possessionss a game for the team, which to a degree offsets (IMO) the turnovers. Add in 1.3 steals and Russell Generates more possessions in a game than he gives away. I'm not saying that the turnovers are acceptable, just that in a game where possesion is everything, you cannot discount offensive rebounds so lightly.

Basketball is about having the ball. Anything that gets you more of that cannot be put into a category of "nice"

I enjoy your post's immensely. I do not agree with you but that doesn't mean I need to be disagreeable. I will concede to you on some points, but not on others. Lets just say that we differ in opinions and be glad that we both care enough about the Thunder and the future of the team to look at these stats.

[slick_watts]

+/- stats have their use because it measures things that are not in the stats sheet. Jeff foster is rated high because he does the little things. He hustles, he rebounds, he plays solid defense, he's a glue guy.Those things are not measured in the box score (Rebounds are but you get my meaning). I assume you read the Shane battier story from the main board a few weeks ago.....
Kevin Durant is low because the team won only 23 games, and he was the main offensive focus, of course he is going to be low. The Thunder did go above .500 for the week or so he was out lets not forget. Durant is our superstar though and I wouldn't want any other player as "the franchise".

sorry, +/- does not measure "everything that isn't the box score". in fact, the score is about all it measures. jeff foster's +/- is likely high due to the sub rotations of indiana, he might play more against 2nd unit players, maybe he's in garbage time a lot, who knows? he does hustle, rebound, and play solid defense, but there is absolutely no way to know how much those things impact the +/-, which makes it pretty useless imo.

the houston rockets use a lot more complicated statistics than +/-, much of which they chose not to share in the article. shane battier's +/- is more than three points higher than deron williams', does he impact the game more? of course not. i could cite dozens of more examples like this.

Offensive rebounding is a great stat, not just nice. They give you another possession. RW averaged 2.2 a game. That's 2.2 more possessionss a game for the team, which to a degree offsets (IMO) the turnovers. Add in 1.3 steals and Russell Generates more possessions in a game than he gives away. I'm not saying that the turnovers are acceptable, just that in a game where possesion is everything, you cannot discount offensive rebounds so lightly.

this has nothing to do with the original comparison. brandon roy and westbrook were equal in steals. russell westbrok got an extra offensive rebound a game. i'm sorry, but that one extra offensive rebound does not offset roy's advantages in almost every other facet of the game, and does not 'make up for' westbrook's carelessness with the ball and poor shot selection. you're grasping for straws with that.

I enjoy your post's immensely. I do not agree with you but that doesn't mean I need to be disagreeable. I will concede to you on some points, but not on others. Lets just say that we differ in opinions and be glad that we both care enough about the Thunder and the future of the team to look at these stats.

okay.

[diggity_88]

I think the only way OKC trades Westbrook for Fernandez, is if they give oden in the trade. Since hes underacheiving and his value isnt as high anymore. Also, it fills there need for a Defensive C. But, if you have to give away Oden, then Portland wont do the trade. Because they'll have no C for the future and get a similar player to roy in return.

So it just wouldnt work.

[Durantist]

This whole Westbrook being compared to Roy is nonsense. Comparing #35 to Roy makes more sense. Come on OKC fans lets get real

[Clangus]

This whole Westbrook being compared to Roy is nonsense. Comparing #35 to Roy makes more sense. Come on OKC fans lets get real

We are comparing a ROOKIE ROY to Westbrook, not the current one.

[wiff]

This whole Westbrook being compared to Roy is nonsense. Comparing #35 to Roy makes more sense. Come on OKC fans lets get real

Did you even read the thread?

We are comparing rookie season's and I'll even toss out another player Westbrook's rookie season compares to.... D-Wade

Wade's ROOKIE year (and he was a year older than Westbrook)
16.2pts
4rebs
4.5assists
1.4stls
0.6blks

3.21TO
46.5 FG%
30.2 3pt%
74.7 FT%

Wade still shot the ball considerably better than Westbrook but Wade also couldn't keep the ball under control either.

Not saying Westbrook is going to be as good or better than D Wade or Roy but I'm not going to trade him for anything less than an All-Star at this point.

[slick_watts]

We are comparing rookie season's and I'll even toss out another player Westbrook's rookie season compares to.... D-Wade

westbrook's season does compare more favorably to wade's rookie year.

my concern with westbrook is that he's a tweener who hasn't shown the abiltiy to score efficienty. wade ended up alright because he can pretty much score at will; he turns the ball over a lot because of his high usage rate, and it's acceptable relative to how often and efficienty he scores. it was evident from his rookie year even that he would be a great scoring guard and not really a pg.

with westbrook, it's accepted that he's going to have to really change the way he plays to be a successful pg in the league. unlike wade, he didn't really show the abiltiy to score at will and do it efficiently in his rookie year. so he's got both those things going against him right off the bat.

i personally think westbrook will end up similar to gilbert arenas. i don't think he'll score nearly as much, but he already has shown the ability to get to the line regularly and he hits his free throws. i don't think it's out of the question for westbrook to be a 20ppg scorer as early as next season if he even gets marginally more efficient near the basket (where a lot of his misses happen).

if the thunder draft big (thabeet, griffin, hill, whoever), i think they should really consider making a push for andre miller. i know he's older and will probably want more money than he'll be worth at the end of a contract, but imo westbrook needs to have a guard he can learn from if he's going to play the point. playing off the ball next to miller would help him become more efficient scoring, and alleviate a lot of the pressure of running an offense all game. another guy i'd consider is kirk hinrich. hinrich could probably be acquired cheaply if the bulls decide to resign ben gordon, he becomes the odd man out with luol deng returning.

the sad part about this is that the thunder had the guy who'd be great next to westbrook, delonte west, but traded him away for nothing as part of the sonics tank job.