Top 25 Players Pt.III - Who's #14?

[NyCeEvO]

Who's #14?

Need tiebreaker vote!

***Voting Deadline: Friday 9pm***

Top 25 Players Pt.II
1) LBJ
2) KD
3) CP3
4) D12
5) TD
6) Harden
7) Curry
8) Melo
9) Kobe
10) TP
--------------------------------
11) D-Wade
12) D-Will
13) Dirk


D-Rose?



KG?



LMA?



Love?



M.Gasol?



Westbrook?



D-Rose - drazen4three, dbd, NyCe (3)
KG -
LMA -
Love - jeff, vc4p (2)
M.Gasol -
Westbrook - boarder patrol, exculpatory, rb3 (3)


Nominees: Pierce (1), Noah (1), Lopez (2), Griffin (1), Kyrie (1), Hibbert (1)

Votes by nykballa2k4 will count after Round 16

[Boarder Patrol]

Westbrook

[exculpatory]

Westbrook

Pierce

[NyCeEvO]

Don't forget to include your nominees!

[jeff1624]

Love


Lopez

[vincecarter4pres]

Vote: Kevin Love (I wrestled with him and LMA, but with LMA's solid yet subpar year I'll give it to Love and his injuries to upside ratio.)

Nominate: Brook Lopez

[therealbig3]

Vote: Westbrook

Nominate: Griffin

[DrazenForThree]

vote: rose
nominate: noah

[deepblueday]

rose

nom kyrie

still can't believe people rate westbrook at all. ball dominant, high usage, chucks, nothing special in the half court, zero pg skills, constantly makes dumb, undisciplined mistakes on both ends, impossible to integrate into a consistent playoff offense... i just dont see it at all with him. ive said it on here before, hes a young leandro barbosa in an extraordinary unique situation, playing alongside far and away the 2nd best player in the game, with a lame duck coach and organization, all of whom refuse to do or say anything about his garbage style of play. should've been traded away to a lottery team (where he belongs) quite a while ago, OKC with durant, harden, and a playmaking PG are title favs.

[therealbig3]

Except the Thunder with Westbrook in 2012 had an incredible playoff offense, while their offense fell off a cliff without him in 2013 while Kevin Durant looked lost. Sure, replace him with an elite PG and the Thunder would have stayed great, like Paul or Deron or Parker or Rose or Curry. But that pretty much means Westbrook is elite himself, since those kind of PGs don't grow on trees. All of those other PGs are already voted in except for Rose, who is returning from one of the most serious injuries a guy who totally relies on his athleticism can have.

Westbrook's got plenty of positives too, like his slashing ability, his defense, his rebounding, his athleticism, and his aggression. Saying he's a younger Leandro Barbosa is just laughable stuff.

I'm not even a fan of the guy, but he gets pretty underrated here, while he's overrated in general.

[deepblueday]

Except the Thunder with Westbrook in 2012 had an incredible playoff offense, while their offense fell off a cliff without him in 2013 while Kevin Durant looked lost.

are you serious? you remove a 37% (... yeah.) usage player from any offense two games into a playoff series and see what happens. westbrook has been an abysmal playoff performer every single year he's been in them, through the roof usage, horrid efficiency, high turnovers, innumerable open teammates missed, constant failure to deliver the ball to durant in key situations, and tons of off balance shots tossed up which lead to run outs for the other team. the thunder are a really good offensive team because of kevin durant. period. with their current roster, their current offense, with the years of experience and chemistry they've built up together, the fact that theyre replacing him with talentless trash, are they better with westbrook than without him? i should **** hope so. but if you ask me if they'd be better with westbrook than with ty lawson or kyrie irving or rajon rondo or damian lillard, ill tell you, after a season of building chemsitry, **** not. rate all those guys over him.

I'm not even a fan of the guy, but he gets pretty underrated here, while he's overrated in general.

more like everyone watched him in the playoffs in 2012 and recognized that he sucks, there was subsequent backlash, and people started to pretend he wasnt that bad. except he is.

[deepblueday]

i love that people scoff at the barbosa comparison. do you know how good a young barbosa was? superb fast break player, very good ball handler, could play on and off ball, impossible to keep in front, very good shooter both off the dribble and spotting up, okay as a drive and dish player, extremely explosive and efficient scorer. they are EXTREMELY similar players, aside from barbosa being much more efficient on less volume. bump his minutes and his usage by 12-15%, put him alongside far and away the best finsihing player and 2nd best overall player in the NBA, and you actually think he couldn't have matched westbrook's performance? it's so hard for people to imagine these drastic shifts in role and usage for some reason, maybe theyve convinced themselves that westbrook somehow "earned" his role and usage in a way players like barbosa never did... but i dont think thats true at all. the trajectory of player's careers are hugely dependent on circumstance.

[Boarder Patrol]

Don't forget to include your nominees!

Sorry!

Nominate: Hibbert

[therealbig3]

Barbosa was also a complete defensive liability and had by far his best years playing next to Steve Nash, coming off the bench as a sparkplug for the offense. As a 2nd option playing more minutes, having to create mainly off the dribble for himself, he wouldn't have been close to as efficient. Not to mention his court vision, passing ability, and willingness to pass the ball makes Westbrook look like Jason Kidd by comparison. Westbrook is much closer to Allen Iverson or Derrick Rose than he is Leandro Barbosa.

And Kevin Durant also happens to be a huge pussy at times and goes through these extremely passive phases of play where Westbrook has to try and do something other than watch Durant just stand there. Yeah, he misses opportunities for teammates, but has Durant not had incredible seasons playing next to Westbrook? Has Ibaka not had great success playing next to Westbrook. Didn't Harden win 6MOY playing next to Westbrook? He doesn't hold his teammates back at all, that's really just absurd thinking...he clearly makes them better, just not to the extent that he could if he got better at reading defenses and looked for the pass more.

But at least he's not a passive POS like Deron can be, or like Rondo mainly is. Even when he doesn't convert on his attempts, he puts tremendous pressure on the defense (a bowling ball on a blanket effect), which opens up opportunities for his teammates tremendously, including Kevin Durant. How about every time he drives, draws three or four defenders towards him, and finds Durant wide open? Or Ibaka? Or Martin?

And Westbrook has had ORatings of 111, 108, and 110 over the past 3 years, and has reduced his TOV% every year of his career, and actually really hasn't been a TO-prone player since 2011. He had a ridiculously low 9.0 TOV% in the 2012 playoffs. He's not an inefficient player, just not a super-efficient one.

Kyrie Irving could possibly be better than Westbrook...until he gets injured and misses 25-30 games.

[jeff1624]

Durant averaged 31, 9 and 6 throughout the playoffs. How is that looking lost? And of course the Thunder aren't as good when you replace Westbrook with Reggie Jackson... that still doesn't mean he's as good as advertised.

He is what he is... a VERY athletic guard that gets to the line a heallthy amount and is an above average offensive player. His "defense" is incredibly overrated, seriously... don't let his athletic ability fool you into thinking he's a good defensive player. He certainly can be, but he gambles way too much and relies HEAVILY on Ibaka's shot blocking behind him. And yes... he can be terribly inefficient seeing as how he's led the league in turnovers a couple of years already.

He's a good player... but he isn't a top ten player like he's been ranked over the past few years. I'd argue that he's on Lopez, LMA and Gasol's tier.

[therealbig3]

I don't think he's a top 10 player, I agree that he's overrated when he gets ranked that high, especially when some people even argue he's top 5.

But at 14? That's a very fair ranking for him.

And Houston couldn't defend a chair. Against a legitimate defensive team in Memphis, Durant averaged 29/10/7, but on 53% TS and with 4.4 TOpg...an overall ORating of 103. His raw averages look nice, but they were also in about 46 mpg. Against a good defensive team, he clearly struggled without Westbrook putting pressure on the defense and helping to free him up off-ball. Durant was forced to play a lot more on-ball, a role he's really just not reliable at right now, since he turns it over like crazy.

[DrazenForThree]

harden being top 6 is 1000 times worse then westbrook being in the 14-15 range. i'd probably have him closer to 20, but 14 is certainly not a crazy ranking for him, especially given how closer the gap for players are from 11-20 then they are from 1-10

[nykballa2k4]

If I am allowed to vote, I would say Westbrook his numbers don't lie.

Nominate Rondo

[NyCeEvO]

If I am allowed to vote, I would say Westbrook his numbers don't lie.

Nominate Rondo

Here's the rule for those who aren't regulars on the Nets board:

If you are not a regular on the Nets board or you don't post here often you need to vote for 3 rounds in a row in order for your votes to count.

I welcome outsiders to vote, but we don't want outsiders intentionally screwing up our rankings. No hard feelings but this is the most effective method I can use to make sure people non-regulars aren't sabotaging this system.

[NyCeEvO]

We need a tiebreaker vote!

Current Count
Rose & Westbrook - 3
Love - 2