'17-'18 POY discussion

[dhsilv2]

I think this whole convo goes back to an individual measure. Some people will put a ton more weight on postseason than RS, some the inverse. I think there's a balance there that everyone who votes every year strikes within their mind on what to do. Personally I value the 82 games over the smaller PO sample.

That is called the sane view.

[therealbig3]

So even with the missed games, I'm putting Curry in my top 4, because I think he's earned it in the games he's played. But I don't expect him to have missed 30% of the games by season's end...I expect him to miss about 20%...which really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things (~65 games), because I weigh the playoffs a lot, and I don't think <20 RS games changes things a whole lot.

[clyde21]

Curry is

#2 in PER
#1 in TS%
#1 in RAPM
#1 in RPM
#1 in WS/48
#1 in OBPM
#2 in BPM
#4 in ORTG

Even with the missed games I don't see how he can be left off the top 5.

[therealbig3]

I think this whole convo goes back to an individual measure. Some people will put a ton more weight on postseason than RS, some the inverse. I think there's a balance there that everyone who votes every year strikes within their mind on what to do. Personally I value the 82 games over the smaller PO sample.

I'd say the playoffs mainly change things for me if a player gets hurt, or they surprise me with how good they are against tougher defenses and reveal something about their games I didn't credit them enough for before, or they surprise me with how underwhelming they are against tougher defenses and reveal something about their games I didn't examine closely enough before.

If everything is more or less the same in the playoffs as the RS, yeah, it doesn't really do anything for me. And this includes if a player shoots over their head or shoots under their average in a series. If their game is more or less the same, but they just had normal variance in their shooting, or if I'm going in expecting a player to do better or worse, and that's what happens, it shouldn't change their ranking on my list, because that's already expected.

[bondom34]

I think this whole convo goes back to an individual measure. Some people will put a ton more weight on postseason than RS, some the inverse. I think there's a balance there that everyone who votes every year strikes within their mind on what to do. Personally I value the 82 games over the smaller PO sample.

That is called the sane view.

I'd agree, but some really really really only care about what they view as "ceiling" which has been claimed as postseason. I vehemently disagree with that thought process (as do you).

I think this whole convo goes back to an individual measure. Some people will put a ton more weight on postseason than RS, some the inverse. I think there's a balance there that everyone who votes every year strikes within their mind on what to do. Personally I value the 82 games over the smaller PO sample.

I'd say the playoffs mainly change things for me if a player gets hurt, or they surprise me with how good they are against tougher defenses and reveal something about their games I didn't credit them enough for before, or they surprise me with how underwhelming they are against tougher defenses and reveal something about their games I didn't examine closely enough before.

If everything is more or less the same in the playoffs as the RS, yeah, it doesn't really do anything for me. And this includes if a player shoots over their head or shoots under their average in a series. If their game is more or less the same, but they just had normal variance in their shooting, or if I'm going in expecting a player to do better or worse, and that's what happens, it shouldn't change their ranking on my list, because that's already expected.

This is mostly where I stand. It takes a big drop or more likely a big leap. Example was Lebron's 2016 postseason.

[ardee]

Just a reminder that Shaq played 67 games in 2002 and was no. 1 in the league.

I think Curry has got this as long as he doesn't get injured again.

[therealbig3]

I also feel like Butler has been criminally underrated for the most part over the last couple years. He's one of the premier wing defenders in the league, a very capable playmaker, and just a really solid, efficient scorer who doesn't pound the rock and dominate the basketball while doing it. Really good spot up shooter, so it makes him a reliable off-ball threat too.

He's the whole package, just not elite at anything other than defense, and he's not anything flashy, so I guess that's why he gets underrated. But I'll say right now that if I had the choice to add Butler or Westbrook/Harden to my team, I'd take Butler. I'll take a player who's still really good offensively, maybe not at Harden's or Westbrook's levels, but is much better defensively than either, and doesn't dominate the ball as much. In terms of portability, Butler has them beat in spades, and he's doing quite well as the leader of his own team right now. They're not that much worse than Houston, and they're right around where the Thunder are.

It's been brought up before, but Kawhi has the superior playoffs in 2017 to go off of...but it's kind of unreal how many people just dismissed the idea that Butler was better than him before that, as if it was so obvious Kawhi was better...when nothing really pointed towards that other than reputation. Butler was almost as good of a scorer, while being a better ball handler/playmaker/passer, and a better defender by all metrics as well.

At worst, I see Kawhi and Butler as essentially equal, and since Kawhi is almost universally considered a top 7 player (when healthy)...Butler should be around there too.

[therealbig3]

Surprised Giannis isn't also getting a TON of love either. His numbers are amazing, it's backed up by strong +/- results, and his team is winning. Pretty much checks all the boxes. For a guy that I thought got overrated in the past because of hype about his physical talent, he really looks like he's fulfilling that hype this year.

[Outside]

Also are you criticizing a 7 footer for averaging 4.7 apg while making a comparison to a 6-3 guy averaging 6.5 apg? Think about that for a split second...

No, I'm criticizing a 31.5% usage rate player for having a 23.7% assist rate, which is really low compared to other 30% or higher usage rate players and particularly for someone who is the primary playmaker for his team. What does height have to do with it? Durant has a 29.9% usage rate and 25.4% assist rate, which is better than Giannis despite Durant being the third-best playmaker on his team. Oh, and Durant is tall.

Yes Wiggins is even worse... He wasn't good at Kansas, as a rookie, as a sophomore, last year, or now. He's a bad player. The levels of badness don't matter much. He's trash and always has been.

And Towns was the worst defensive player in basketball. You're too focused on the boxscore.

1. So what was your point bringing up Wiggins and Towns in the first place?

2. You're going overboard with the hyperbole again. In a league with Isaiah Thomas, Towns is not the worst defensive player in basketball. Guys you want to portray as bad can just be bad; they don't have to be the worst.

Like you said PER means nothing. Watch the Wolves some time. He's horriblem when he gets out there no matter who's out with him the other team goes on a run. I decided to look it up and he actually ranks 489th in RAPM... Out of 491 players. The only guys under him are Kosta Koufos and Cristiano Felicio. And Shabazz is terrible. I just looked him up too and he's 485th in RAPM. Maybe you don't realize it but Minny is a legitimately terrible team. Yeah Crawford gets PT he's a proven player that's now awful while the other guys on the team have always been awful.

I didn't say PER means nothing. And RAPM doesn't mean everything. Your argument loses credibility when you attempt to paint half the Wolves roster as the worst players ever that demi-god Jimmy Butler has miraculously raised to fourth place.

Not when Curry has missed 30% of the season he doesn't. And it's not narrative its what happened. You're way too focused on numbers and not what he did. Jimmy was playing great before the numbers and the second he wanted to he could turn it on and the numbers would be back because (like Curry) he's a superstar and that's what they do.

Curry missing 15 games doesn't invalidate what he's done in the 35 games he's played. You point to numbers when they support your argument for Butler and say they don't matter when they don't. I'm not way too focused on numbers. I'm using data to support my argument.

51.1 TS% isn't an issue?

No. TS% isn't a replacement for analyzing the game. Tyson Chandler ain't the GOAT.

I just don't know what to say. How did Tyson Chandler get into this? We're talking about the relative merits of POY candidates, and this is apparently a news alert, but efficiency is a thing in the NBA now.

League average is 55.6 TS%.

Curry - 28.1 PPG on 68.0 TS%, 1st in the league, +12.4 rTS%
LeBron - 26.8 PPG on 62.9 TS%, 11th, +7.2 rTS%
Giannis - 28.4 PPG on 61.8 TS%, 20th, +6.2 rTS%
Harden - 30.9 PPG on 61.1 TS%, +5.5 rTS%
Kyrie - 24.8 PPG on 59.8 TS%, +4.2 rTS%
Butler - 21.7 PPG on 58.8 TS%, +3.2 rTS%
Derozan - 24.5 PPG on 56.7 TS%, +1.1 rTS%
Westbrook - 25.7 PPG on 51.1 TS%, -4.5 rTS%

Westbrook is the only one below league average, and he's way below. He's 16.9% worse than Curry. He's 5.6% worse than DeRozan, the next worst among the candidates listed.

Efficiency matters. It's huge. It's changed the way the game is played.

Butler has one flaw in his resume and its that he was the 30th pick and wasn't ever supposed to ever one of the 3 best players in basketball so tons of people continue to ignore pretty obvious evidence he is.

Okay, then. I guess I should've asked this first to see where you were coming from.

[therealbig3]

Efficiency matters, but it's not the be all end all, not even close. It's nice to be efficient, but TS% captures such a small part of a player's true impact. You can have bad efficiency and be a better offensive player than guys that are more efficient than you.

Westbrook's aggression and passing ability pretty much make his TS% irrelevant tbh. He has so much gravity going towards the rim, and he's really evolved as a passer to the point that he's straight up elite in that department imo. Still don't love his shot selection and decision-making at times, which to me knocks him down a peg, but the relentless nature with which he plays and the fact that he's really really good for the most part at finding the open man off the defensive attention he draws makes him one of the best offensive players in the league.

And considering that his TOV% is down from previous years also somewhat makes up for his TS% anyway. If you look at his individual Orating, it's only 3 points down from last year (109 vs 112), when he had a 55.4% TS. And honestly, it doesn't look like anything in his game has even changed compared to previous years, it's just that he's gone from being a really good FT shooter to a mediocre one this year, and that's affected his overall TS%. But like I said, it's the aggression and the passing ability and the constant pressure he puts on opposing defenses that's really important, not the TS% really. And it's offset anyway by the reduced TOVs.

All in all, the OKC offense is 6th in the league, and with Westbrook on the court, they're at 113.7, which is really, really good. He's never had an amazing TS% either, but he was still a co-anchor on some amazing offenses in OKC, and even last year, OKC had a 111.5 offense with Westbrook on the court, despite having almost no shooters around him. So harping on his TS% really does seem to be missing the forest for the trees here.

Furthermore, the Thunder this season with Westbrook on the court, without Melo and George:

Westbrook on, Melo/George off: 106 minutes, 118.4 Orating, 102.2 Drating (+16.2)


We can compare that to guys that have a much higher TS%, like LeBron, Kyrie, Curry, Durant, and Harden, without their top 1-2 teammates on the court with them:

LeBron (Love off): 506 minutes, 119.0 Orating, 114.5 Drating (+4.5)
Kyrie (Horford off): 439 minutes, 113.1 Orating, 110.5 Drating (+2.6)
Curry (Durant and Green off): 84 minutes, 128.0 Orating, 100.0 Drating (+28.0)
Curry (Durant and Klay off): 177 minutes, 125.3 Orating, 113.3 Drating (+12.0)
Durant (Curry and Green off): 407 minutes, 111.1 Orating, 107.1 Drating (+4.0)
Durant (Curry and Klay off): 187 minutes, 117.4 Orating, 116.3 Drating (+1.1)
Harden (Paul off): 945 minutes, 117.6 Orating, 108.7 Drating (+8.9)

Most of these combos have larger sample sizes than Westbrook without Melo and George, but for a quick comparison, we see that the only players that lead a better offense than Westbrook without their star teammates are LeBron (barely) and Curry, and in Curry's case, he's still paired with either Klay or Green. And overall, the Thunder are also capable of playing elite defense while scoring that well, and their net rating is bested only by an even smaller sample size by Curry (84 minutes), and like I mentioned before, he's still paired with Klay in that scenario.

TS% doesn't tell you any of that, even though this stuff is WAY more important than what a player's TS% is.

[E-Balla]

No, I'm criticizing a 31.5% usage rate player for having a 23.7% assist rate, which is really low compared to other 30% or higher usage rate players and particularly for someone who is the primary playmaker for his team. What does height have to do with it? Durant has a 29.9% usage rate and 25.4% assist rate, which is better than Giannis despite Durant being the third-best playmaker on his team. Oh, and Durant is tall.

A 23.7 ast% with a 31.5 usg rate isn't at all low for a forward which is what you're missing. Again you're criticizing his play style and not the level of his play.

And KD from 2013-2017 had a 23.8 ast%. Again that's still impressive for a forward. Just because he's not getting 8 apg it doesn't mean he's not a good passer.

And if you watched Milwaukee you'd see he's not running point forward nearly as much. He's being asked to score since Middleton can pass, Bledsoe can run the offense, and there's no Jabari/Monroe to just score.

1. So what was your point bringing up Wiggins and Towns in the first place?

2. You're going overboard with the hyperbole again. In a league with Isaiah Thomas, Towns is not the worst defensive player in basketball. Guys you want to portray as bad can just be bad; they don't have to be the worst.

1. You mentioned the Wolves "underachieving" because people who didn't pay attention to them had them making the playoffs. I was mentioning the guys most people thought would lead them to the playoffs sucked.

2. Isaiah Thomas doesn't play center. Towns hurt his team on defense more than anyone else in the league. These were the types of plays you could expect out of Towns every night last year.

Read on Twitter

So no Towns wasn't just bad. He was one of the worse if not the worst.

I didn't say PER means nothing. And RAPM doesn't mean everything. Your argument loses credibility when you attempt to paint half the Wolves roster as the worst players ever that demi-god Jimmy Butler has miraculously raised to fourth place.

They didn't win 31 games last year because they were good.

Curry missing 15 games doesn't invalidate what he's done in the 35 games he's played. You point to numbers when they support your argument for Butler and say they don't matter when they don't. I'm not way too focused on numbers. I'm using data to support my argument.

No you aren't. You're just posting his boxscore numbers. No one is denying a healthy Curry would be #1. The lower rankings of him (I say lower because I still have him at 4) come from his injury which you're avoiding. I've said a billion times in this thread I understand people not taking injuries into account. Others have said they understand taking them into account. You seem to be unable to process this.

I just don't know what to say. How did Tyson Chandler get into this? We're talking about the relative merits of POY candidates, and this is apparently a news alert, but efficiency is a thing in the NBA now.

League average is 55.6 TS%.

Curry - 28.1 PPG on 68.0 TS%, 1st in the league, +12.4 rTS%
LeBron - 26.8 PPG on 62.9 TS%, 11th, +7.2 rTS%
Giannis - 28.4 PPG on 61.8 TS%, 20th, +6.2 rTS%
Harden - 30.9 PPG on 61.1 TS%, +5.5 rTS%
Kyrie - 24.8 PPG on 59.8 TS%, +4.2 rTS%
Butler - 21.7 PPG on 58.8 TS%, +3.2 rTS%
Derozan - 24.5 PPG on 56.7 TS%, +1.1 rTS%
Westbrook - 25.7 PPG on 51.1 TS%, -4.5 rTS%

Westbrook is the only one below league average, and he's way below. He's 16.9% worse than Curry. He's 5.6% worse than DeRozan, the next worst among the candidates listed.

Efficiency matters. It's huge. It's changed the way the game is played.

What matters is team efficiency not individual player efficiency. Lamarcus Aldridge lead Portland to a #2 offense while having a 51 TS% because he took all the bad shots and opened up great shots for his teammates. Westbrook is similar.

[weekend_warrior]

What matters is team efficiency not individual player efficiency. Lamarcus Aldridge lead Portland to a #2 offense while having a 51 TS% because he took all the bad shots and opened up great shots for his teammates. Westbrook is similar.

OKC is ranked 22 in team TS% with 54.5%, which is still well below league average. And this is mainly because Westbrook takes a s***load of shots on bad efficiency. They have a good ORTG because of their high offensive rebounding numbers, which is by far leading the league. Mainly because Steven Adams is by far leading the league in ORB%. This guy is really good.

Now you can tell me that this works because of all the missed FGA of Westbrook, but honestly, every sane person would take the player that can score with the initial action on (much) higher efficiency.

[Pillendreher]

51.1 TS% isn't an issue?

No. TS% isn't a replacement for analyzing the game. Tyson Chandler ain't the GOAT.

I just don't know what to say. How did Tyson Chandler get into this? We're talking about the relative merits of POY candidates, and this is apparently a news alert, but efficiency is a thing in the NBA now.

League average is 55.6 TS%.

Curry - 28.1 PPG on 68.0 TS%, 1st in the league, +12.4 rTS%
LeBron - 26.8 PPG on 62.9 TS%, 11th, +7.2 rTS%
Giannis - 28.4 PPG on 61.8 TS%, 20th, +6.2 rTS%
Harden - 30.9 PPG on 61.1 TS%, +5.5 rTS%
Kyrie - 24.8 PPG on 59.8 TS%, +4.2 rTS%
Butler - 21.7 PPG on 58.8 TS%, +3.2 rTS%
Derozan - 24.5 PPG on 56.7 TS%, +1.1 rTS%
Westbrook - 25.7 PPG on 51.1 TS%, -4.5 rTS%

Westbrook is the only one below league average, and he's way below. He's 16.9% worse than Curry. He's 5.6% worse than DeRozan, the next worst among the candidates listed.

Efficiency matters. It's huge. It's changed the way the game is played.

Just to add some context to this: Russ' offensive game came back about 6 weeks ago after that 3 OT game vs Philly. And so did the Thunder's offense:







Here's a comparison for the Thunder as a team and their Big 4 (before|after):

ORtG: 102.2|113.9
DRtG: 100.7|106.7
NetRtG: +1.5|+7.1

TS%: 52.6 %|56.9 %
eFG%: 49.3 %|54.3 %

Russ: From 22.7/9.6/10.0 on 42.7 eFG%/47.7 TS%/101 ORtG to 29.5/9.3/10.1 on 53.6 eFG%/56.8 TS%/119 ORtG
George: From 20.4/5.6/3.2 on 49.7 eFG%/53.7 TS%/103 ORtG to 22.1/5.3/2.7 on 57.8 eFG%/62.4 TS%/119 ORtG
Melo: From 18.0/6.4 on 47.1 eFG%/50.6 TS%/102 ORtG to 17.2/5.4 on 51.1 eFG%/53.7 TS%/112 ORtG
Adams: From 13.7/8.8 on 63.5 eFG%/64.8 TS%/125 ORtG to 13.9/9.2 on 65.1 eFG%/64.1 TS%/131 ORtG

Since 12/16, the Thunder have the 7 highest rated offensive 3-man lineups in the league among the 179 lineups with at least 250 minutes played.

This is really a tale of two seasons if you will. Now with Roberson out for the season, they will have to fight even more to still be good defensively.

[eminence]

Efficiency matters, but it's not the be all end all, not even close. It's nice to be efficient, but TS% captures such a small part of a player's true impact. You can have bad efficiency and be a better offensive player than guys that are more efficient than you.

Westbrook's aggression and passing ability pretty much make his TS% irrelevant tbh. He has so much gravity going towards the rim, and he's really evolved as a passer to the point that he's straight up elite in that department imo. Still don't love his shot selection and decision-making at times, which to me knocks him down a peg, but the relentless nature with which he plays and the fact that he's really really good for the most part at finding the open man off the defensive attention he draws makes him one of the best offensive players in the league.

And considering that his TOV% is down from previous years also somewhat makes up for his TS% anyway. If you look at his individual Orating, it's only 3 points down from last year (109 vs 112), when he had a 55.4% TS. And honestly, it doesn't look like anything in his game has even changed compared to previous years, it's just that he's gone from being a really good FT shooter to a mediocre one this year, and that's affected his overall TS%. But like I said, it's the aggression and the passing ability and the constant pressure he puts on opposing defenses that's really important, not the TS% really. And it's offset anyway by the reduced TOVs.

All in all, the OKC offense is 6th in the league, and with Westbrook on the court, they're at 113.7, which is really, really good. He's never had an amazing TS% either, but he was still a co-anchor on some amazing offenses in OKC, and even last year, OKC had a 111.5 offense with Westbrook on the court, despite having almost no shooters around him. So harping on his TS% really does seem to be missing the forest for the trees here.

Furthermore, the Thunder this season with Westbrook on the court, without Melo and George:

Westbrook on, Melo/George off: 106 minutes, 118.4 Orating, 102.2 Drating (+16.2)


We can compare that to guys that have a much higher TS%, like LeBron, Kyrie, Curry, Durant, and Harden, without their top 1-2 teammates on the court with them:

LeBron (Love off): 506 minutes, 119.0 Orating, 114.5 Drating (+4.5)
Kyrie (Horford off): 439 minutes, 113.1 Orating, 110.5 Drating (+2.6)
Curry (Durant and Green off): 84 minutes, 128.0 Orating, 100.0 Drating (+28.0)
Curry (Durant and Klay off): 177 minutes, 125.3 Orating, 113.3 Drating (+12.0)
Durant (Curry and Green off): 407 minutes, 111.1 Orating, 107.1 Drating (+4.0)
Durant (Curry and Klay off): 187 minutes, 117.4 Orating, 116.3 Drating (+1.1)
Harden (Paul off): 945 minutes, 117.6 Orating, 108.7 Drating (+8.9)

Most of these combos have larger sample sizes than Westbrook without Melo and George, but for a quick comparison, we see that the only players that lead a better offense than Westbrook without their star teammates are LeBron (barely) and Curry, and in Curry's case, he's still paired with either Klay or Green. And overall, the Thunder are also capable of playing elite defense while scoring that well, and their net rating is bested only by an even smaller sample size by Curry (84 minutes), and like I mentioned before, he's still paired with Klay in that scenario.

TS% doesn't tell you any of that, even though this stuff is WAY more important than what a player's TS% is.

Agreeing with all this, but to emphasize Steph's ridiculousness. Without any of KD/Draymond/Klay going back to the start of last season

Curry (KD/Dray/Klay off): 156 minutes, 123.3 Orating, 107.6 Drating (+15.7)

If we do just this season

Curry (KD/Dray/Klay off): 42 minutes, 124.0 Orating, 102.1 Drating (+21.9)

The man is a banannas level offensive force. He has a 125.1 Orating on the court. That's ~5 pts better than anyone else I'm keeping track of (CP3/KD are right around 120).

[therealbig3]

What matters is team efficiency not individual player efficiency. Lamarcus Aldridge lead Portland to a #2 offense while having a 51 TS% because he took all the bad shots and opened up great shots for his teammates. Westbrook is similar.

OKC is ranked 22 in team TS% with 54.5%, which is still well below league average. And this is mainly because Westbrook takes a s***load of shots on bad efficiency. They have a good ORTG because of their high offensive rebounding numbers, which is by far leading the league. Mainly because Steven Adams is by far leading the league in ORB%. This guy is really good.

Now you can tell me that this works because of all the missed FGA of Westbrook, but honestly, every sane person would take the player that can score with the initial action on (much) higher efficiency.

No, because a lot of these players scoring with higher efficiency aren't anywhere close to Westbrook in terms of creating good looks for their teammates. They're not as good at handling the ball, passing the ball, or constantly pressuring a defense...and it's not just Adams that benefits from Westbrook wreaking havoc.

Also:

Westbrook on, Adams off: 456 minutes, 115.3 Orating, 108.4 Drating (+6.9)

Without Adams on the floor, Westbrook is still leading a great team that's killing it offensively, and this is with a noticeable drop in ORB%.

Furthermore, the Thunder are also doing well offensively because of their low turnover rate (6th best in the league). As the guy who has the ball in his hands most of the time, and on that kind of usage, Westbrook should also receive praise for not turning the ball over all that much. Which, like I said, pretty much makes up for whatever deficiency is caused by his low TS%.

I also already posted numbers on how Westbrook compares to other players without their star teammates on the court with them, and he compares extremely favorably.

[weekend_warrior]

No, because a lot of these players scoring with higher efficiency aren't anywhere close to Westbrook in terms of creating good looks for their teammates. They're not as good at handling the ball, passing the ball, or constantly pressuring a defense.

I don't think you are wrong with what you write, but for me this is a bit a question of perspective. THERE ARE players which can create offense on a similar level/volume as you describe it and are still (much) more efficient, namely Lebron, Curry, Harden and imo Durant (he has shown that at OKC when he had to handle everything). In any case the difference in the creation department is smaller than in the efficiency one. I am completely aware that Westbrook is better than guys like DeRozan, but that shouldn't be the ones we compare him to.

[bondom34]

No, because a lot of these players scoring with higher efficiency aren't anywhere close to Westbrook in terms of creating good looks for their teammates. They're not as good at handling the ball, passing the ball, or constantly pressuring a defense.

I don't think you are wrong with what you write, but for me this is a bit a question of perspective. THERE ARE players which can create offense on a similar level/volume as you describe it and are still (much) more efficient, namely Lebron, Curry, Harden and imo Durant (he has shown that at OKC when he had to handle everything). In any case the difference in the creation department is smaller than in the efficiency one. I am completely aware that Westbrook is better than guys like DeRozan, but that shouldn't be the ones we compare him to.

This season though, outside of Curry and Harden, these others haven't had his impact. Which goes back to shooting=/= offense.

[eminence]

No, because a lot of these players scoring with higher efficiency aren't anywhere close to Westbrook in terms of creating good looks for their teammates. They're not as good at handling the ball, passing the ball, or constantly pressuring a defense.

I don't think you are wrong with what you write, but for me this is a bit a question of perspective. THERE ARE players which can create offense on a similar level/volume as you describe it and are still (much) more efficient, namely Lebron, Curry, Harden and imo Durant (he has shown that at OKC when he had to handle everything). In any case the difference in the creation department is smaller than in the efficiency one. I am completely aware that Westbrook is better than guys like DeRozan, but that shouldn't be the ones we compare him to.

This season though, outside of Curry and Harden, these others haven't had his impact. Which goes back to shooting=/= offense.

And Harden isn't exactly leaps and bounds ahead.

[bondom34]

I don't think you are wrong with what you write, but for me this is a bit a question of perspective. THERE ARE players which can create offense on a similar level/volume as you describe it and are still (much) more efficient, namely Lebron, Curry, Harden and imo Durant (he has shown that at OKC when he had to handle everything). In any case the difference in the creation department is smaller than in the efficiency one. I am completely aware that Westbrook is better than guys like DeRozan, but that shouldn't be the ones we compare him to.

This season though, outside of Curry and Harden, these others haven't had his impact. Which goes back to shooting=/= offense.

And Harden isn't exactly leaps and bounds ahead.

Yeah he was in such a large lead to start it throws me off every time and I don't want to sound like I'm a guy who dislikes him blindly after he slowed down a bit.

[eminence]

My top 4 in some order would be Westbrook/Curry/Harden/Butler. Lots of guys competing for 5th, not sure who I'd have there right now.

Did my All-NBA teams as a thought exercise (forward projecting on things like missed games)

Curry/Westbrook/CP3
Harden/Butler/Oladipo
LeBron/KD/PG13
Giannis/Davis/Draymond
Jokic/Towns/Embiid