2017-2018 OKC Thunder Regular Season Thread Part Deux: Follow the Melo Brick Road

[slick_watts]

You're literally saying he's been passed by guts he's well better than. We know you don't like him. You don't need to use bad logic to do so

i'm not saying they passed him. i'm saying a case can be made. and the case can only be made because of how their scoring efficiency has exploded while westbrook's has fallen. maybe it has nothing to do with league changes or paradigm shifts. i think it does.

this has nothing to do with me liking or not liking westbrook. it's an observation of his lower scoring efficiency relative to a league landscape that appears less and less favorable for a player with westbrook's skills. westbrook is supremely skilled so obviously he's still good regardless. but he's being affected.

[slick_watts]

And I love that ypubact like I thought Dre was suddenly awful when he had a poor start to the year too and I changed when I saw he was helping the team.

you changed when his rpm started to look better. i told you and others that dre always starts slow on rpm and those metrics until the sample size grows and his impact on the defense separates out. you didn't believe me. where does he rank now?

[bondom34]

And I love that ypubact like I thought Dre was suddenly awful when he had a poor start to the year too and I changed when I saw he was helping the team.

you changed when his rpm started to look better. i told you and others that dre always starts slow on rpm and those metrics until the sample size grows and his impact on the defense separates out. you didn't believe me. where does he rank now?

To the last post no, three isn't an argument to be made unless you entirely ignore how well they function in a team setting. Like how if you ignore Dre on team defense you miss his value. And you'd never do such a thing to him.

And no actually I changed my view on Dre about a week after I suggested that maybe they start someone else. I didn't even say it for sure. I literally threw out a possibility for a week and quickly realized it was wrong. Yet you sit here and clutch at it like your last straw man of hope.

[bondom34]

Hey not like you've ever been wrong. Or at least ever owned it.

[slick_watts]

To the last post no, three isn't an argument to be made unless you entirely ignore how well they function in a team setting. Like how if you ignore Dre on team defense you miss his value. And you'd never do such a thing to him.

don't be obtuse. there are far more direct ways to measure individual offensive impact than individual defensive impact. and this is a completely different conversation than that one was. dre impacts team defense in ways that can be reasonably associated to his presence. opponent turnovers, opponent three point shooting, things like that. if we were an elite defense with dre because opponent fg% is last in the league at the rim then obviously that's a different story.

westbrook's a great offensive player, but our success with him in the game offensively has a lot to do with our elite offensive rebounding. that's a flimsier stance, one that appears to be vaguely supported by one random stanford paper that doesn't even draw any data on the season we're talking about. we're league average on every other factor this year with westbrook in the game.

how well they function in a team setting is a complex, complicated thing to resolve that requires more than 'look at their pp100 while they are in'. a simple statement like that is just reductive nonsense. i'd support an in depth analysis of irving, kemba, and lillard and how they are impacting their team's offenses. i don't support a surface reading.

Yet you sit here and clutch at it like your last straw man of hope.

i honestly questioned your sanity when you made the suggestion. that's how jarring it was.

[slick_watts]

Hey not like you've ever been wrong. Or at least ever owned it.

i've been wrong plenty of times but i don't like to dwell on the past.

[bondom34]

To the last post no, three isn't an argument to be made unless you entirely ignore how well they function in a team setting. Like how if you ignore Dre on team defense you miss his value. And you'd never do such a thing to him.

don't be obtuse. there are far more direct ways to measure individual offensive impact than individual defensive impact. and this is a completely different conversation than that one was. dre impacts team defense in ways that can be reasonably associated to his presence. opponent turnovers, opponent three point shooting, things like that. if we were an elite defense with dre because opponent fg% is last in the league at the rim then obviously that's a different story.

westbrook's a great offensive player, but our success with him in the game offensively has a lot to do with our elite offensive rebounding. that's a flimsier stance, one that appears to be vaguely supported by one random stanford paper that doesn't even draw any data on the season we're talking about. we're league average on every other factor this year with westbrook in the game.

how well they function in a team setting is a complex, complicated thing to resolve that requires more than 'look at their pp100 while they are in'. a simple statement like that is just reductive nonsense. i'd support an in depth analysis of irving, kemba, and lillard and how they are impacting their team's offenses. i don't support a surface reading.

Yet you sit here and clutch at it like your last straw man of hope.

i honestly questioned your sanity when you made the suggestion. that's how jarring it was.

I'm questioning yours now.

Especially given this team has a better offense than those. And that we see a large portion of it from a bad Melo. Irving and Lillard both have worse team offenses and discrediting it because of offensive rebounding feels odd when Westbrook helps that and its not like he's magically the only player benefiting from lineups when we agree this team has awful lineup distribution relative to most.

Its an insane stance quite frankly. I'm literally baffled. Next I will hear you'd rather start Dre than get Klay Thompson and just see if.they could flip Russ for Jeff Teague since he can shoot.

[bondom34]

Hey not like you've ever been wrong. Or at least ever owned it.

i've been wrong plenty of times but i don't like to dwell on the past.

What a joke.

Why do I ever waste my time. I'm out.

[Dadouv47]

OKC being a buy out ''destination''' because of Billy *** Donovan is kind of...sad

[slick_watts]

Especially given this team has a better offense than those. And that we see a large portion of it from a bad Melo. Irving and Lillard both have worse team offenses and discrediting it because of offensive rebounding feels odd when Westbrook helps that and its not like he's magically the only player benefiting from lineups when we agree this team has awful lineup distribution relative to most.

can we have an honest conversation for once? it seems like you continually misrepresent me in your replies. i'm not discrediting the comparison to irving and lillard 'because of offensive rebounding', i am discrediting it because a vague glance at their team's performance on offense probably tells you more about the four other players on the team rather than those guys themselves. you may be right about this whole thing i don't know. but this isn't the way to show it.

i point out the offensive rebounding for the thunder because even a shallow dive into the thunder offense can reveal a far more precise look at the strengths and weaknesses, and a better understanding on where that 115pp100 comes from. you are completely avoiding nuance in this discussion, and attacking me for suggesting that maybe a closer look is warranted.

even orpm has irving, kemba, and lillard glommed up with westbrook offensively.

Its an insane stance quite frankly. I'm literally baffled. Next I will hear you'd rather start Dre than get Klay Thompson and just see if.they could flip Russ for Jeff Teague since he can shoot.

you think it's an insane stance to question whether or not these league trends have had a negative impact on westbrook's performance offensively? or that it has elevated players who do have the skill sets to take advantage of those changes?

[bondom34]

Yeah like I said a joke. Out.

[Andre Roberstan]

Dom...they're fair points.

Also side note:

Read on Twitter

I wouldn't have been able to handle Rose on this team. Brewer might have been the best option (barf).

[EnragedThunder]

Hopefully Brewer doesn't come in and automatically receive Derek Fisher type of minutes. For some reason, Brooks gave Fisher insane amounts of minutes.

[hardenASG13]

I'm excited for brewer.......you heard me! He's a better player than huestis and Ferguson, I think/hope. A playoff bench of felton, brewer, grant and patterson is respectable....whoever closes the season best out of abrines/ferguson/huestis can start, I guess.

[slick_watts]

Dom...they're fair points.

Also side note:

Read on Twitter

I wouldn't have been able to handle Rose on this team. Brewer might have been the best option (barf).

derrick rose and russell westbrook on the same team would honestly have been fascinating to see.

[Andre Roberstan]

derrick rose and russell westbrook on the same team would honestly have been fascinating to see.

I've already had to pull back my emotional investment in this team. Rose coming here would break me.

It would have been interesting to watch in the sense that a full train derailment is interesting.

[slick_watts]

derrick rose and russell westbrook on the same team would honestly have been fascinating to see.

I've already had to pull back my emotional investment in this team. Rose coming here would break me.

It would have been interesting to watch in the sense that a full train derailment is interesting.

would the thunder have marketed rose as a former mvp and a star?

"big four"?

i would have loved to see it.

[bondom34]

Dom...they're fair points.

Also side note:

Read on Twitter

I wouldn't have been able to handle Rose on this team. Brewer might have been the best option (barf).

They're fair in the same way that its fair to say Roberson gave up 35 to Harden. Sure. Its there. But no matter who the player in song care bout individual numbers over team ones. Its why I've held many stances I have and why I always thought certain player types are vastly overrated and or underrated. Its been true in the past and is here. I've felt the same on guys like Walker vs Irving and a guy like Rubio vs Teague. I don't care what your TS is if your impact at a team level outweighs it.

I've checked out more this year than in the pastbtoo anfnagree on Rose. Ill take Brewer. Don't think he's worse than Ferguson.

[slick_watts]

They're fair in the same way that its fair to say Roberson gave up 35 to Harden.

not true. you have not even addressed my examination of why this isn't true, and i would also add that this criticism of andre roberson is narrow even within the actual scope of the season. sleestak was only examining certain games that andre roberson's counterpart performed well, with zero control for whether or not roberson was actually on the court or not. lumping in my observations with that one is engaging in lazy schlock, bondom. it really is.

I don't care what your TS is if your impact at a team level outweighs it.

except you're unwilling to even entertain the idea of separating out the players' individual contributions from their relative team success on offense. my simple proposition that our offense with westbrook performs exceedingly well at a thing that westbrook may only have a sideways impact towards was met with ambivalence. i want to examine team performance in this discussion. you seem to only desire a cursory glance.

we have a metric that you otherwise hold in high esteem (when it suits you) that is designed to separate out an individual's contributions to team success, and whattaya-know, orpm has westbrook and the other three i named in the same ball park.

[bondom34]

And still nah.

You manage to ignore individual vs team offense. Hey that's reasonable when you refuse to do so on defense because its your pet player. Not doing it. You would be on ignore if I could because its a waste of time even talking with you unless someone just blindly accepts your views.

As for rpm yes in Westbrooks worst season since about 2012 he is in their ballpark. But now we wouldn't cherry pick worst seasons would we. Yes I know that's the current year. But he's clearly playing worse than his norm and the team offense functions better than others ..

Your shtick is old and tired and its already made me take a few breaks from here. Looks like I'm gonna need to stop using the internet for a while or at least this sub