So, I admit I was highly intrigued by this trade and my first reaction was more positive, due to the fact Westbrook is younger and can be counted on to play more games. Having said that, I wanted to compare the both players last year to see in what aspects we can get better production and what aspects we will get worse. Obviously that if the relationship between CP3 and Harden was really bad, maybe this is a valid reason at it’s own to go get one of Harden’s buddies. Let’s talk numbers. First I looked at the regular season games and after the playoff games. I compared hard stats and then advanced stats. There are infinite ways to cross stats and to come to more insights, but I wanted a first, quick look, so I know some of the conclusions won’t be that deep. For people who want the excel sheet, you can access it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XK5AeLgbQIlx8jAGcsEmf62yemRUPCKg/view?usp=sharing Regular Season (Hard Stats) Westbrook is more durable, he played 15 more games, averaging 15% more minutes per game (36 vs 32) and this is probably the most underrated stat. The fact is, CP3 is way past his physical prime and showed no signs of being able to stay healthy throughout a whole season. Yes, Westbrook is a much worse 3point shooter, this is backed up by the stats, but he doesn’t take as many threes as we believe - he does shoot 19% worse from 3 than CP3 (36% vs 29%), but he attempted less three’s than CP3 per game (6,1 vs 5,6) so it’s not like he is taking 10+ threes every game. My worry here is spacing, he certainly can’t space the floor like CP3 and in Houstons take all three’s available, I’m kind of afraid he will increase his 3PTA as teams will dare him to shoot (MDA has to curtail this). Even though he is a horrible 3pt shooter, his EFG was practically equal to CP3’s (0,46 vs 0,51) - he compensates his 3pt shooting by being a good finisher at the rim and drawing much more fouls than CP3 (77% more fouls per game). If we consider this season was an outlier for him in terms of free throw percentage (he shot a career low 65%) he could have a similar or bigger impact than CP3 if he doesn’t suddenly become trigger happy from three. It’s worth noting he destroys CP3 in rebounding, collecting 141% more rebounds per game (11,10 vs 4,6). It will be interesting to see if this continues or was due to OKC bigs boxing out for him. Regular Season (Advanced Stats) They posted a really similar PER (21,1 for Russel vs 18,7 for CP3). And the stats just help confirm what I stated on the hard stats chapter. Probably the big surprise is the assist ratio percentage, Westbrook beats CP3 by 18%, a stat I did not expect and at this point of their careers proves Russell has more tools to be a playmaker and that could be great for Capela inside and our wing shooters outside. His high usage of 30,9 should also go down now that he will share the court with another ball dominant guard. For comparison sake, Harden has a usage rate of 40,5, which is insane. Another big surprise was that Westbrook actually scored much better in defensive win shares than CP3 (5 vs 2,2) - I don’t really trust this stat, but it’s interesting, it could show he isn’t such a horrible defender as we believe he is (or that CP3 isn’t really that great at it anymore). He scores better in this stat than Harden also. Playoffs Stats Here is the part that I worry about the trade. If during the regular season their FG% was virtually the same, here CP3 shot it at 45%, whilst Westbrook went down to 36% whilst attempting 64% more shots per game than CP3. So it’s a fair assessment that during the Playoffs Russell shot his team out of the contest and CP3 although visibly slower, was more consistent and less of a volume “black hole”. It was a shock to me that Westbrook’s 2pt% dropped from 48% during the regular season to 37% in the Playoffs, which means he probably took many more mid range 2pts than driving layup 2pts. The three silver linings here is the fact he shot free throws at 88% (back to his usual average) and his 3pt shot went up to 32% at more 3pt attempt if compared to the regular season. Not to mention his Assist% ratio was maintained at a really high level. Another positive surprise is the fact he had a lower turnover ratio than Cp3 during these decisive games (18,1 vs 15,8). Conclusion: Westbrook is a clear upgrade for the team during the regular season and if he gets back to his normal free-throw percentage I see us winning more games than last season simply due to Westbrook missing less games than CP3, whilst giving practically the same production (with increments to playmaking, rebounding and ability to drive to the rim). My main concern is the level of play of Westbrook in the Playoffs, his last series was really bad. He took more shots and missed at a higher rate. In games with a thin margin that will kill you and in OKC's case, it did. Having said that, if we consider WB has 2-3 more years at the same level of productivity and CP3 will decline, we have extended our window and got the better player out of it. The thing is if he can perform at the Playoffs and doesn't try to do too much. It’s worth noting the stats don’t account for personality, system, general chemistry and it doesn’t do a great job at evaluating defense, so the jury still out on all that. Anyway, exciting time to be a Rockets Fan and next season will be a crazy one in the NBA. Interested to know Clutchfans take on all this. Source: basketball reference - they have more stats, just didn't have time to dive in more haha.
Thanks for this. Westbrook isn’t made for playoff basketball success, but if he can be just a little bit more under control he is better than a broken down Paul. Hopefully he will allow Harden to rest even more than Paul did during the regular season and also in the playoffs just by being more durable. The other silver lining is we are really burdened with him for just 2 years and in the 3rd year he is a valuable expiring contract as a good trade chip whereas Paul would still have another year. Hopefully we can get a 3 and D wing now and we should be set to have a real shot at competing for the Championship. I really hope House turns out to be a steal too.
Paul’s biggest asset is that he’s one of the smartest people to ever play the game. He dictates tempo and does the little things it takes to win a ring
Like the post but one thing I'd like to push back on is that their eFG is "practically equal" while being 5% apart. A gap of 5% is a pretty big gap. To give some more perspective, about the same as the gap between Damian Lillard and Kevin Durant. I don't think we consider Lillard and Durant to be practically equal shooters.
I think the real value of this trade isn’t as much in the performance differential between the two this year. It’s more about extending the window of competitiveness. That’s something that can’t be accounted for in the stats for this coming year.
I think he will have his niche in the offense. Teams overplay us so hard at the 3 point line, anyone with an even remotely competent handle can get to the rim with ease. Obviously, they won't be overplaying Westbrook on the perimeter, but on plays where Harden drives -> dishes to the corner -> corner player passes to Westbrook, he will have a very clear lane to the bucket as teams recover from collapsing on Harden/scrambling to contest the previously inevitable 3 point attempt. Should also note that his playoff shooting from midrange was only 16%! Take that shot out of the equation and his shooting splits look a lot better,
"It’s worth noting he destroys CP3 in rebounding, collecting 141% more rebounds per game (11,10 vs 4,6). It will be interesting to see if this continues or was due to OKC bigs boxing out for him." This is truly a funny statement. Time to dig up all the sh't of those CF fans commenting about Russ's rebounding in that year he won the MVP over Harden.
Good point, but if WB can get his free throws back to normal, the gap should close down and my guess is that CP3's EFG will dip even further the next coming years.
I'm intrigued by Westbrook's tenacity and this can potentially ignite Capela's motivation to be a more consistent contributor when playoffs hit. Westbrook and Harden both agreed that they wanted to play with each other, so they are aware they both can't have the ball on every possession. Maybe with having Westbrook we might be able to use D'Antoni's offensive genius and we could maybe lean more towards team scoring over iso scoring..?
He didn't even make out of second round until last year. I'd argue Chris Paul was a Liability against golden State last year.
Hhahaha I'm genuinely curious to see how many rebounds he averages this year and if a point guard can make a real difference in this kind of stat or was it always empty in OKC.
MDA is probably the last coach to discourage a player from shooting 3-point attempts. This definitely worries me. I do hope MDA is able to set Westbrook up for success on offense the way he was able to do that for Harden in his first season. Good stuff, by the way. Thanks for this.
Yeah, this is probably my main worry in terms of fit. Ideally he should limit himself to around 5 3 pointers attempts per game, only more when he gets hot. But in our system I think he could suddenly up his attempts to 10 (Harden took 13 per game last year) and with his horrible three point shooting percentage that will shoot us out of games (maybe not an issue against bad or middle of the pack teams, but certainly a problem versus other elite teams).
Problem was that he wasn’t keeping up physically with his smarts. What’s the saying “the mind is willing but the body ain’t@
Lol, shooting 16% from anywhere is insane haha. To be fair his average in the Playoffs (all years) from the midrange is 36%, which is mediocre, but not historically horrible.
The sharing the ball thing is not really a concern for me. The same things were said when cp3 first got here. If he hadn’t fell off a cliff with being able to beat people off the dribble he’d probably have had a higher usage last year as well. I don’t think harden will mind sharing since the guy he’s sharing with will be a force.
