As there’s lots of media out there seemingly applauding this move on the Wizards behalf, claiming Westbrook/Beal is one of the best backcourt duos now, yada, yada, yada ... can we just set the record straight?? Westbrook sucked. He was horrible. yeah I wanted to make excuses for him in the playoffs. Yeah I wanted to say what about that month and a half when he was “great”? but let’s be honest. Even in that stretch it was kind of like... “who cares”? Cause the whole time you were ALWAYS thinking “please don’t let Russ think he’s the man now!!!” will I go as far as to say they were empty stays? No. He can elevate crappy players/teams to a degree. But beyond that there’s a limit. And on a better team... I don’t care about his early OKC success days, etc. I didn’t want him AT ALL on this team. I would have given him away in a salary dump no questions asked. remember his mvp season when we as Rockets fans were like “isn’t harden elevating a team with equal talent (Ryan Anderson was one of their better players lol) much better? Isn’t Russ just stat padding here?” that’s Russ. how about the time KD liked an Instagram post noting ownRuss was the “problem” in OKC (to only later say it was a mistake lol). I feel bad for Wizards fans. They WILL be better. But not anywhere near better enough and potentially at the detriment of Beal (should be his team but with Russ’ on court personality good luck with that) and some of the others. I don’t mean to bash... but I’m just so amazed that in 2021 media analysts are still, somehow, in awe of Russ because he “plays hard”.
I was wrong, I thought Harden and WB would collaborate better. Too many chefs in the kitchen. Shame a soft tissue injury derailed Russ's season. Russ or Wall.... that ain't a player you can incorporate in a shortened season. At least now if Harden leaves we can go back to competing for the 8th seed if we aren't already there.
Yeah, he was. He was outright godawful, but for some reason he still has people pretending that he was a good player, it's weird. Russ apologists aren't quite as bad as Lin apologists were, but they are both just ridiculously delusional.
Even the month and a half that he put up great stats, it came at the cost of reconstructing the entire team around his deficiencies(microball). The way basketball was played had to be changed, which also took away one of Harden's primary weapons, the lob threat.
Westbrook has some injuries, but there was a stretch where he was doing some things, and rockets were winning. So he is allstar player, but just really lacks consist control. Those turn overs where terrible, yet he just had areas where he didnt know what role he had on the team. So ya he really didnt fit in here very good. He can flat out score the ball and drive thats for sure. 27 ppg while being on team with harden shows you. He is good but just not a good fit here, and was sloppy sometimes. Injured as well.
Go watch the lakers series . You can’t blame being dumb as a tree stump on the basketball court on COVID or quad injury. His offensive awareness and shot selection is awful . A guy who can’t shoot to with no shot selection equates to the mess we saw. I’m sure he will Average 30-10-10 in Washington but it’ll be on empty calories again
My problem is that we sold low on him. I feel like we could have gotten a better return had we just let him play some games this season.
Westbrook: 22.5 shots a game to average 27.2 points...he had a 106 offensive rating...team was atrocious when he was on the floor without Harden Harden: 22.3 shots a game to average 34.3 points...he had a 120 offensive rating...team fell off a cliff whenever he was off the floor I won’t even bring up the playoff numbers for Russ because those are NSFW Russ stans think the ball should’ve been in Westbrook’s hands more tho
Nvm the media. How about the amazing amount of people on this very board that told the rest of us how amazing he was. Completely utter bs. Just embarrassing In the tilman era, it really separated who has at minimum a semblance of a respectable iq on this board. The usuals continue to out themselves as people who have no idea wtf they’re talking about
Go ahead and bring out Russ's injured playoff numbers..... Much better Harden taking those shots than WB..... pretty simple.