Westbrook: "I don't give a f*** about (my stat) line."

Slavery connotation. Pretty lame I guess to say. But not that big of a deal.

 

Here we go again.


He could’ve said that Westbrook is monkeying around

 

Yo Russ, after you finish 5th or worse in MVP voting, you will see that a lot of other people didn't have too many f-ks to spare for your stat line this year either.

 

i don't know if i would say it's common, but i certainly wouldn't have thought anything of hearing that phrase until this thread. i guess mostly because it never occurred to me what it might mean.

 

His lack of scoring is more explained by his 19 assists rather than the 20 rebounds. And he didn’t need the assists to get his triple double average.

Only player in history to average a triple double in multiple seasons. That’s pretty crazy.

I’d rather criticize him for bad shot selection and bad defense than his aggressiveness in pursuing loose balls. I said it last year and I’ll say it again. There is a clear advantage to having a guard who is a terror in transition start the possession with the ball in his hands. I’m not going to fault him for “stealing” rebounds just because people overstate the significance of his triple doubles.

 

There isn't a clear advantage if said guard is constantly camped in the lane and ignoring perimeter defense.

 

Sure, if Russ were grabbing the rebound and then firing the ball downcourt before the defense could set up, Harden style, that makes tons of sense.

Except in a lot of cases, Russ grabs the rebound after a missed FT with 3 blue/white jerseys around, the defense is heading back up in transition, and instead he is heading back towards the basket to vaccuum up the ball.

I have never pulled it up and don't even care about trying, but I'm going to venture that Russ scores precious few transition baskets on his uncontested rebound opportunities for this reason.

 

so why doesn't your idol's heroics/rebound stealing translate to wins??

let me guess he needs help

 

Poor shooting/defense, as I already said.

 

It would be interesting to see how those numbers breakdown this year.

This late 2016 article discusses Westbrook’s rebounding, and provides several clips showing how it gets his team going in transition.



This stats article also discusses the same topic, with some numbers to back up the idea that Westbrook’s defensive rebounding helps their transition game:

https://fansided.com/2016/12/05/nylon-calculus-westbrook-triple-doubles/

 

stealing shots -> poor shooting
stealing rebounds -> poor defense
stealing shots and rebounds -> nueters his teammates -> losses not wins

WB is the only guy who benefits from WB's stat padding

not his teammates not his team

 

So you are saying the Thunder would win more than 48 games this year if he wasn’t on the roster. And same for last year.

 

I'm saying the Thunder would win more than 48 games if an inefficient player wasn't determined to shoot more than anyone else and cared more about defending guards on the perimeter than getting rebounds to hit triple doubles.

 

definitely if harden was on that team instead of russ

 

Slavery connotation.

 

yeah not really a ton of detail there in the fansided article.

there's an opportunity cost when Westbrook hunts the boards, it's probably some combination of:

poorer defense, since he's constantly watching for the shot. He was probably the worst MVP candidate defender last year.

delayed/stunted transition offense vs defense (the possession technically starts later than it would when Russ comes back to the basket and others box out for him, giving the other team more time to get back and delaying the Thunder offense from getting upcourt)

the videos in the medium article show when it works and its in the flow of the gamr, but look at the embarrassing videos from tonight with the whole team standing around to help Russ secure the ball. Also I'm sure there's instances where Adams is simply in better position to corral the rebound....is it better if Russ takes a short pass from him already heading up court?

For example the Rockets made a concerted effort to get Harden the ball as PG last year in the backcourt and the results were spectacular for largely similar reasons, his ability to exploit the defense early and often. But they didn't make the same obvious effort to get him the nominal rebound.

 

Lol u mean replace him with harden??

 

You normally call people cotton pickers?

 

There are tradeoffs, as you point out. Adams has said that it helps him to be able to focus on boxing out knowing that Westbrook can swoop in to corral the rebound. Two of the best PGs in NBA history at running their team in transition were notable defensive rebounders — Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd. I believe it helps. You bring up Harden and how he charged our transition game last year. Well, last year his defensive rebounding also happened to spike. I don’t think that’s mere coincidence.

 

OK. I see what you’re saying. You think his team would be better off if he found a better balance between attending to his team’s defensive schemes and going after defensive boards. Sure.