People are just stupid with their criticism. No, it is not the multiple time All Star, Olympian and NBA finalist. It is Enes freakin' Kanter.
The dude is straight up balling. Affecting the game in so many ways. I'd wish Harden had the heart and motor of Westbrook. If you think harden's support cast is bad, Westbrook's is hot trash. Roberson? Waiters? SIngler? Kanter? LOL gimme a break. At least Harden has vets who ahve won rings in Ariza and Terry as well as PBev, Smith, DMo etc. Credit where credit is due. Westbrook is a beast
Unfortunately all of our experienced vets are in a & have been in a slump, & for some reason can't hit wide open shots...
DJ Agustin is better than Pat Bev, Ibaka is better than anyone who isn't Harden or Howard, Steven Adams and Kanter are as good as DMo/Tjones...just look at the analysis of OKC after the trade deadline everyone kept saying they are talented and deep. Weren't Ariza and Be known as the brick brothers be cause all they can do offensively is hit open 3's and they can't even do that consistently? Jet won a ring? Great, he alsp happens to be like 38 freaking years old, and wasnt JSmith the main reason Detroit lost so many games? The fact is, in a vacuum OKC is just as good or even better than Houston when it comes to depth. The difference is Harden's unique skill set makes everyone better and the entire team becomes more than the sum of its parts. Individually WBs talent surpasses Harden's, but since b-ball is 5-on-5 instead of 1-on-1 the Rox have 3rd placed locked up while OKC is fighting for the last playoff spot.
If Harden had missed 15 games earlier in the season, you's probably find his "heart and motor" just fine now.
The Enes is 16 and 11 since he came to OKC, replacing Perkins squat diddly with that has certainly made a difference - ESPECIALLY since Ibaka went down. Sure, it isn't all Kanter, Westbrook has been huge (for mine, the MVP race is Lebron or Russ [boo! I hate it, but the NBA is all 'what have you done lately]) - but Kanter has definitely helped!!
What about the other 9 days? Which ones does he have off? And I can only assume Feb 29th on leap years??
Westbrook has been doing this for years. Kanter has been doing it since he got to Okc. That is the difference.
Doing what? Chucking? Not that hard to score 20+ pts a night when you take more shots than the rest of the starters combined. Okc last year with KD and no WB was more unstoppable, and they had a much worse cast to do it too.
Really? See just stupid criticism. Reggie Jackson replaced Westbrook when he go hurt. Who replaced Durant? The Thunder were not unstoppable either. Yeah, all Westbrook is doing is chucking. People still saying this just appear ignorant.
SMH at this argument. Watch WB tonight and you know why people marvel at him, and it's not really his points. Dude defended, rebounded, and made plays. He can contribute to wins when he shoots poorly. Much worse? He had Ibaka and a legit backup at PG in Jackson, who's a starter on most teams. WB has who as Durant's backup? And Ibaka is out a lot this year too. And he's been injured himself. If WB had been healthy all year, OKC would have a higher seed than #8.
It's not like Durant played through a fracture on the face & After the hand surgery. Westbrook has been a beast with all the injuries he has had. And sure, he chucks the shots, but he does many other things such as defending, rebounding, and make plays by assisting.
Ibaka has only been out the last few games, before that he missed 1 or 2 games. Before he went out, yeah, OKC had a better support cast for Westbrook than Harden had, now though with Durant and Ibaka out, not so much (at least not when our guys get over their niggles). Westbrook is an athlretic freak, but he has single handedly cost his team several games (none worse than his last 10 seconds against Chicago), you take the good with the bad with that guy, but there's a reason he doesn't typially translate into wins and its not that his support cast sucks (it's been better than the guys that Durant was tracking .700 with last year).
Kanter is very talented, a former top 5 pick who is offensively gifted Had the Thunder not made those trades, they wouldn't be in the Playoffs, they needed to trade for depth
