14 minutes of Russell hitting clutch shot after clutch shot

does westbrook know that harden likes to take the last shot every single time?

 

How are you going to "easily cherry-pick" freaking 16 minutes' worth of literal game-winning shots? Ridiculous.

 

lol Westbrook looks so hyped and pissed at the same time after every shot he makes.

 

What about the 5 part 10 hour mini series of his dumb ass plays?

 

A few years ago, I read some sports science thingee that said a jump shot was the most difficult maneuver in sports because of the number of muscles that had to fire at the same time and/or in a very fast sequence plus the hand-eye coordination.

After spending an hour or so watching this and other Westbrook videos last night, two things stand out to me about his jump shot.

The first is the constant violence of his movements, specifically, the jumping part of the jump shot. He always gets up there but seems just on the verge of losing his balance. If he wasn't a world class athlete and more like me, a fat old guy, it'd be like bouncing on a trampoline when you start windmilling your arms to keep from doing a face plant. Most of the height gained by his violent explosion is unnecessary the vast majority of the time. If you have to do that to get the shot off, it's probably not a good shot unless you're down by 1 with .5 seconds left and you're boxed in by 2 defenders. Better to jump at 50-70% and stay more balanced and under control to release the shot.

The second thing that stood out was the drift. Many of his pull-up shots aren't true pull-ups as even Westbrook cannot defy physics. He moves fast, drives, plants, and goes up. However, he cannot stop his momentum in the direction he was moving. Because of that, he ends up drifting substantially from his takeoff point and the shot geometry now has to factor in that lateral movement, which is more often than not towards a sideline rather than towards the basket. While drifting is common, you rarely notice it because most players seem to do it going towards the basket to keep the shot lined up. The lateral drift affects your shooting form because if you're moving across the lane/basket, you have to twist and move your arms/hands to keep the shot lined up while your body is hurtling through the air in another direction. You also have to factor in the drift of the ball in flight and "lead" the shot a little as you release it. (There are probably technical terms for all this.) Westbrook takes a lot of mid-range shots with this added lateral complexity, making a jump shot of normal difficulty even tougher.

When you consider the violent take-offs and the number of lateral drift shots he takes, it's amazing his shooting percentage isn't even lower. If Dantony and Harden and all the wizards employed by Morbey can get him to exert a little more control over just that jump shooting aspect of his game, I think his percentage would go up tremendously. My guess is that he is a good to great shooter in shooting drills but is unable to dial it down enough in a game. I will say that when his shot is on, it's a fun shot to watch go down. Even his made shots carry some of his violence when they are going through the basket.

Of course, for years people have been after him to give up some athleticism for efficiency. Maybe his age, his friendship with Harden, and this change of scenery will help him refine his game. One can hope.

Regardless, this will be a fun season to watch. It'll either be a happy Frankenstein that runs amok through the NBA or it will end in an explosion that leaves a smoking crater over most of the continent.