I think the difficulty in projecting for both these players is that CP3 and Westbrook had their worst shooting years of their careers last year (okay maybe CP3 had one year worse, but it was a fluke like a decade ago or something). The question you have to ask is, 1.) how likely are they to regress to their career means in terms of shooting; 2.) how much of this can account for their poor performance stats last year as far as contribution to winning; and 3.) are there any other factors that the eye test can reveal that stats cannot? 1. Both CP3 and Westbrook are likely to shoot better next year, but Westbrook is also going to be 31yo next season where CP3 is 34.5yo. There is a significant chance that CP3's shot goes away completely at some point when his career is ready to be over. We just don't know if that will happen in 1yr, 3yrs, or 5yrs. It also helps Westbrook more that his supporting cast will get significantly better, and the spacing around him more favorable to having open shots. CP3 if he stays on OKC will likely be the focal point whenever he is running the offense. 2. CP3 had 6.6 win shares last year and .172 WS/48, compared to a career average of .247 WS/48. Westbrook had 6.8 win shares last year at a .124 WS/48 clip, compared to a career average of .164. This highlights the fact that CP3 has largely been a greater contributor to winning throughout most of his career by virtue of running the offense and the defense, being meticulous with his teammates about the details where Westbrook can be considered as a "lower basketball IQ" player. I'm not going to lie: the advanced stats do not like Russell Westbrook in terms of his ability to be a winner. In his MVP season, however, he had 13.1 win shares at a .224 WS/48 clip. He shot 34.3% from 3, and 55.4% with his true shooting. The year before when Durant got hurt for a lot of it, he had a 14.0 win share year with .245 WS/48. Ostensibly he has not yet lost a step in terms of athleticism, so there is no reason to disbelieve his ability to return to a level like this, provided that his supporting cast is once again at the level it was when Durant was still his teammate. This is probably why the variance of his projection for next year is so high as well, compared to Chris Paul's which has a much lower ceiling. 3. The big problem with Chris Paul's pure stats projections are that they do not account for what everyone could see last year: his athleticism was gone. He was slow getting by his man. He was slow on defense as people zipped by him. He might end up with a Jason Kidd-like last few years of his career, but seeing what we've seen it feels like his best case scenario. You cannot have a player like that making a third of your team's salary and expecting to win a championship. Westbrook on the other hand played awful last year, we could all see it with his running long two's, his off balance 3's off the dribble, and just poor decision making in general while Paul George was having an MVP-caliber season when healthy. But, the whole time Westbrook was stinking it up, we never saw him lose a step. This is not a Carmelo Anthony falling off a cliff situation at the age of 33. Carmelo Anthony is a HUGELY overrated player in the media's eyes: career .127 WS/48, 10.7 his highest win share season, awful efficiencies across the board. Westbrook still has a chance. When you listen to the multitude of scout-type analyses of this trade, the gist of it is that Westbrook was awful last year. We can't change that. But looking at possibilities for improvement next year, there are certainly reasons to hope. Westbrook has never had as good shooting around him as we will provide next year. Durant and Paul George were elite rangy SF's that could certainly ease the burden of the offense, but Westbrook has never had a guy who off-the-dribble could scare teams like Harden; the gravity of Harden will suck so much attention away from him that he might have opportunities that he's never had before. There needs to be a synergy between him and Harden on both offense and defense that suggests that both of them will be better playing together than they were individually. If that happens, then we still have a championship window. If it doesn't, I'll see you in 2028, after Morey is fired, Harden's retired, our draft obligations to OKC are over, and hopefully we have some semblance of competitiveness once again.
Yes, but who’s Westbrook replacing? You have to consider that in any analysis. Context is what makes any analysis relevant.
I don’t expect him to be WB 16-17. I expect Harden and WB to be the 2019-20 championship tandem. They’ve both gone MVP chasing the last few years and both put up historic numbers. I’m hoping they’ve put that behind. WB, brings that in-your-face swag that the Rockets have been missing since Beverly.
It's not that complicated. Westbrook is 4 years younger than CP3 and was an All Star Last Year and CP3 hasn't been an All Star since 2016. Westbrook was an MVP in 2017 and is in the prime of his career like James Harden is. We traded a point guard who had major decline in his physical ability and replaced him with an taller and much more athletic player who has played successfully with Harden before. CP3 is an injury waiting to happen. Those picks being in the high 20s will not be the type of picks that you can rebuild a team with. What else do you need to know? I have never been a fan of Westbrook, but this is a trade extends our championship window for a few years. With CP3, the window closed after his first year. I am blown away by the negativity on this board. Will it work and lead to a championship, we can only hope for the best. With CP3 on this team, there was no hope for a championship going forward.
I see Westbroook pushing the early offense if nothing happens he snaps it to Harden and he steps into a 3 Rocket River
Sure, but I didn't make my comment about Westbrook with CP3 in mind. YaoMing#1 assumed I did though and sorta put words/thoughts in my mouth/head hehe.
I'm going to make all my charts like this going forward, I should have used this in stats as well... , "well it's basically +/- the entire chart at each data point"
Bit of pessimism from me though - our 2 stars now are 2 of the stars who regularly underperform in the playoffs. Not sure how that's gonna bode for our season when it comes to the playoffs.
And they were denied by ~105,000 votes nationwide (margin in PA, MI, and WI). Or, the same number of people attending a good game in Ann Arbor, would've decided who was President. Point being, they were awfully close to being right. Which is as much politics as I'll ever get into on this board. I'm curious about their model, and how well its predictions survive reality.
