Why are there no videos of Russell Westbrook's stat padding?

No it isn't. Kanter, Adams and Oladipo are better than every teammate Harden has this year. And OKC is right around where they were projected to be record wise.

Stop falling for the false narrative of Westbrook playing with scrubs.

 

Not wrong at all, IMO. I agree with this.

 

At the beginning of the year ESPN ranked Adams, oladipo and lantern better than every single other rockets player (except harden) and ranked Westbrook higher than harden. Most NBA experts predicted the thunder to also do better than the rockets. So this idea that Westbrook teammates are worse is just wrong. OKC is performing on expectations; the rockets are blowing them away. The reason is harden's style helps his teammates; westbrook's style forces his teammates to defer; so much so they are failing to really develop their game and take a step back in development. That's why we think they suck now but not before.

 

LMAO just hurrible

 

Second in uncontested rebound % we do not argue with delusionals. You both have been cursed by ISOBall

 

lol. that's a good find, and excellent video clip. deserves its own thread, and I'm actually genuinely serious about that, for once.

 

thanks for admitting he's a stat padder and donovan and the whole OKC team is in cahoots

their bigs suddenly became atrocious defensive rebounders this year compared to lasy year (check out defe reb per 36 TY vs LY for gibson, kanter, & adams)

harden single handedly revived the careers of MDA, gordon, and anderson

and the thender are actually under achieving while the rockets are over achieving

but yeah omgTHEhardenhater harden is as big as a stat padder as westbrick hehe

 

I don't hate Harden. I think he is a very good player who has some flaws (like many other stars). But I guess Harden fanboys interpret being objective as hating on him.

 

Gordon and Oladipo are a wash. Capela and Adams are a wash. It's hard to compare Kanter/Anderson b/c of their different styles, but given the choice, I'd say that every Rocket fan would rather have Anderson b/c of how his game complements Harden's.

After those 3 (before the trade deadline), OKC had a big dropoff in terms of talent. As much as Ariza gets trashed around here, he's still significantly better than Roberson. And we also have Beverley, who has proven to be a game changer this year. Even Harrell was impressive when Capela got hurt. Do you remember who stepped up for OKC when Kanter got hurt? Nobody. In terms of supporting casts, Harden's has easily been better than Westbrook's. Failing to acknowledge this fact just makes Rockets fan look insecure and petty.

I don't understand why so many of you feel the need to underrate our players. The fact that we have a quality roster doesn't take anything away from the incredible season Harden's been having.

 

No they aren't. Oladipo plays defense. Maybe you meant they are a wash offensively.

No they aren't. Adams is a defensive interior presence. Capela isn't.

Kanter can create his own shot and shoot. He'd be fine alongside Harden as well.

Sure, they have a dropoff in talent after you consider the three players better than everyone else on our roster outside of Harden. Harrell was impressive for the same reason Capela is. Harden gets them plenty of point blank layups and dunks. That requires being open to passing the ball and not just coming off of it when you have no choice.

I'm not underrating them. Presti wouldn't trade Kanter, Adams or Oladipo for anyone on our team outside of Harden.

 

Gordon is a better offensive player. Oladipo is a better defensive player. If you look at their total real plus/minus, Gordon is at 1.39 while Oladipo is at 1.30. So as a whole, those players are a wash.

Adam's DRPM is 1.34 which is good for #32. Capela is #44 at 0.96. In between them, have low usage guys like Miles and Marshall Plumlee, Jakob Poeltl, Tyler Zeller, and Joel Anthony. The gap between Capela and Adams isn't nearly as wide as you think. Plus, Capela is a far superior pick and roll player by virtue of being able to cut faster and jump higher. With Capela, Harden can just lob it towards the rim and trust Capela to go get it. Westbrook can't do that with Adams. Adams simply lacks the explosiveness.

Yes, Kanter would be fine, but would the Rockets? Kanter's style conflicts with Harden's whereas Anderson's style allows Harden and the Rockets' offense to play to their full potential.

Oladipo/Adams/Kanter aren't better than Gordon/Anderson/Capela. And while the Rockets still have Beverley and Nene, OKC has no one. In other words, we have a better supporting cast.

Unless you're Presti or Morey, you're talking out of your ass right now.

 

Why are you using real plus/minus instead of PER for example? PER discounts defense, and yet Oladipo is still ahead of Gordon 14.5 to 13.8. He shoots better than him in every area but ft's, and avgs more assists. They are a wash offensively, at best (for Gordon). Then he grabs more boards and is a superior defender. As a whole, Oladipo is a better player.

Adams voluntarily gives up defensive boards to his triple double chasing teammate. We fear catching a team with a real frontline in the playoffs because we know we have no real interior defenders. That wouldn't be a worry with Adams. Sure, Capela is better at getting dunks. That's about it.

Yes, the Rockets would be fine. Anderson is garbage in half of the games he plays. If guys like Nene or Harrell can play in this system, so could Kanter.

Yeah, they are, and damn near every source that ranked players prior to the season and the narrative changing had their players ahead of ours. Presti didn't lock all 3 up with max deals before they could hit free agency just for the hell of it.

Unless you or anyone else is in a locker room or GM suite, then we are all talking out of our ass as we post our opinions on a fan message board. Do you work for a team or the league? If not then pot, kettle.

 

So despite the fact that offensive real plus/minus says Gordon is a better offensive player, you insist that Oladipo is better? Also, Gordon (2.7) averages slightly more assists than Oladipo (2.4). And who cares about the 0.3% difference in 3pt shooting? I'd much rather have Gordon's 37.9% and ability to shoot consistently from ~27 feet than Oladipo's 38.2% at the 3pt line. Floor spacing is crucial to our offense.

You mean capitalizing on the pick and roll? It's laughable that you're trivializing the foundation of our offense.

Which teams with a real front court do we fear? GSW doesn't rely on frontcourt interior offense. Neither do the Spurs, and I don't think we truly fear the Spurs. So who else is there?

Regardless what you think of Anderson, his ability to shoot almost 40% from ~27 feet away is crucial to our offense. Also, we use Nene/Harrell at center, and they can both run the pick and roll. OKC primarily uses Kanter in isolation. So replacing Anderson with Kanter would be a huge downgrade for our offense. That's not debatable.

Do you understand the concept of "projections"? Are you aware that Adams, Kanter, and Oladipo are all <= 24 years old? If a GM thinks he has a breakout candidate, he's going to pay to keep him.

Every time I see the "preseason projection" argument, I cringe. It's a stupid argument that's easily refuted. Projections are based on recent history. Last year, Harden, Beverley, and Capela were all underwhelming. This year, they're all having career years. Now look at our acquisitions. Anderson. Gordon. Nene. Anderson and Gordon are both 28 and have been in the league a long time. In terms of abilities, they're known quantities. They also have injury histories which tempered preseason expectations. Also, we've all heard that while it's easy to put up stats on a bad team, it's much harder to put up stats on a good team, right? Well, not only have Anderson/Gordon been surprisingly healthy so far, they've also managed to produce close to what they did in New Orleans. It's understandable why analysts underestimated us, and making them eat crow has been great.

Conversely, because OKC has a bunch of young players (Adams/Kanter/Oladipo/Roberson), no one knew what to expect, but a player's 3rd year is typically when he makes a leap, right? Not to mention Oladipo was new to the team. So analysts came up with projections that were decidedly optimistic. And as the season unfolded, they changed their mind.

By using the "preseason projection" argument, you're essentially saying that opinions based on fact (based on how the season has unfolded) carry less weight that opinions based on guesswork (preseason projections).

Sorry, but no. Not even close. If you're going to claim to know what a GM is or isn't going to do, then you're clearly talking out of your ass. On the other hand, I'm making no such claim. I'm citing stats and player skillsets. Why would I need to be affiliated with a team to validate these easily verifiable things?

 

I see that you ignored my question. Why are you using that particular metric instead of others, like PER or their actual shooting %'s?

I stand corrected on the assists. I like how you dismiss Oladipo being better at something with "who cares". There is no telling what Oladipo could shoot getting the wide open looks that Gordon gets every night. I also like how you are shifting the goal posts from "better player" to "better fit for our system". I 100% think we are utilizing our players better than OKC is utilizing theirs (with Westbrook's stat chasing being one of the main reasons), but that doesn't equate to us having better players. Gordon being better for our system (even if I concede that he is) doesn't mean he is a better player than Oladipo. The false narrative of our players being better than theirs needs to stop.

Yes, he's better than Adams at that. I've acknowledged that. But Adams is still good in that category. Adams shoots 67% at the rim. He'd be fine in our offense too, and he isn't a liability on the interior defensively. We wouldn't be fearing having to play the Grizzlies or Clippers in round 1 with him. As far as which teams do we fear, damn near any team with size that can score or kill us in rebounding. But hey, maybe you have been ignoring the main forum this season.

There you go moving the goal posts again. A poster said OKC has less talent that us. I said BS because their top 3 players after Westbrook are better than everyone else on our roster. Yay, we like Anderson to stand on the perimeter and shoot, and he does a good job of this every other game or so. That doesn't make him a better player than Kanter. Our coach has utilized plenty of bigs that weren't major 3-point threats. Al Horford can't spread the floor like Anderson can either, as far as our system goes, but we still went after him before Anderson this summer, with max money. So to say we couldn't make it work with better players is silly.

I do. And the fact that he locked them up prior to even letting someone else flirt with them is a clear sign of how he values those players. So when I say he wouldn't trade him for dudes on our roster, that they are already outperforming at a young age, I'm pretty confident in that opinion.

As far as using preseason arguments on how players are perceived, I think all of the players would be perceived the exact same way now. None of these players games have had a major shift this season.

You're giving your opinion on player skillsets and noting chosen facts that you think support your opinion (ie plus minus instead of PER). You are also giving your opinion on what's better for our system when you have no idea on what the coaches think others can do on our team. You have no idea how our coach would utilize a Kanter or the impact he could have here. I gave my opinion as well. All opinion based. Nothing you have said is proven fact. This is a message board where we discuss our opinions on these matters.

 

Blast this stuff out, ya'll. Retweet it for sure.

 

To add to what you're saying, why would people everywhere (including vegas) put the odds in OKCs favor this preseason if Houston had better support? Harden is better than Westbrook because he's taken roughly the same quality around him and done much more with it. That includes the coach. Don't forget that Billy Donovan was smart enough to take 3 games from the 73 win GSWs during the playoffs. Everyone was clamoring about his coaching abilities 8 or 9 months ago. He's still a good coach.

Harden is the best player in the league and part of that is how his teammates play around him. Westbrook's teammates love him so much that they've dropped their rebound rate this year for the stat-padder. Which is more valuable to the team? A stat padder or a winner?

Stat padding rebounds only happen on the defensive end, right? So this:

Top defensive rebounders for OKC the last two years and what's changed:
Steven Adams' *defensive* rebounding per 36 minutes dropped 0.5 rebounds per game.
Enes Kanter's *defensive* rebounding per 36 minutes dropped 1.6 rebounds per game.

Westbrook's *defensive* rebounding per 36 minutes shot up 2.9 rebounds per game.
Meanwhile Westbrook's offensive rebounding has remained the same. Do you think he's putting more effort in this year? Offensive rebounding numbers don't indicate an increased effort for 'brook.

I wonder where all these extra rebounds are coming from? If Westbrook is such a great rebounder, why did the team rebounding get so much worse this year? They went from getting 48.6 rebounds a game as a team to 46.3. Kevin Durant is a very good rebounder and they lost him, but in games where KD did not play for the Thunder last year, they averaged 48.4 rebounds per game. Again, I ask.. if Westbrook is such a great rebounder, what happened to the team that averaged 48.4? And don't bring up Ibaka, he was always an average rebounder so he was replaced.

Westbrook's triple doubles are overshadowed by the reality of those triple doubles and the significant winning that didn't take place for him.

 

Because projections are based on recent history. Harden and Beverley had down years last year while our two main acquisitions have a history of injury concerns and played for a bad team. We also lost our star defensive anchor and brought in a new coach. There were plenty of reasons to doubt us before the season began.