[OFFICIAL] Russell Westbrook as a Washington Wizard

I liked post January Rockets Russ. I'm not impressed by the bloated stats of any of todays stars, but i liked him here when things started clicking and i knew he was hurt during the playoffs. Wanted him to stay and teach that mamba mentality to the young guys. Obviously, i didn't think we'd get a top 3 pick, and we still may lose the pick, but i'll take a top 3 guy who could boom/bust over a few stat padding .500 Russ seasons.

 

Westbrook playing elite basketball right now -- Wiz could be a tough series if they win the play in game.

 

I'm curious, so the wizards have been 13-3, 2 of those games(sA, Dal) have been one possession losses. In your gross oversimplifications of looking at averages(russ is a highly volatile, a lot of your criticism rings true of him, yet simply put it isn;t the story, just a part of the story) do you really feel based on what you're saying that The wizards would be better without him, that he is a net negative as you said better on the floor wihtout him?
have you watched the 13-2 run that took them from lottery low to now brushing the 8th seed? I just want to be clear, so you believe that they'd win those games, or do better in that run without westbrook, with raul neto or whoever is replacing them bc of your stat that shows you they are better on the floor without him?

 

The stat padding of today is real. Its an odd thing as osar's back in the day game had s o much possession, but no doubt the nba has opened up the court for the guards and playmakers to flourish. That said, you could even lower the threshold from his arbitrary triple doubles. There aren't even many people sniffing a 15-8-8. He is doing a lot of everything, the heart and soul of the team(which is hard to measure itst impact on culture, just as chris paul despite popular opinion says that the biggest loss and difference in 2019 was ariza, the glue guy) but literally westbrook is so volatile, he can lose you a game and win you one too. All of a sudden he can go off offensively, so his 'averages' don't really show capability. HOF isiath thomas said it well about westbrook, in any case, every pg when they see westbrook on the other end of he court know they are in for an absoulte relentless headache, effort, energy are all skills. i say this knowing he also is the factor of us losing in the playoffs, injured russ is useless.

you are right, paul george, oladipo, now beal all say westbrook raised their games with their intensity. Itst something to have your best player, mj, kobe be the hardest and most intense worker, no one can take days off on practice and they all raised their level of prep with russ's intensity. But you're right, we would have the shot at the top 4 which is best for our franchise and he wanted to leave like almost all the vets in our team did

 

Man, all I want now is the Wizards get into the playoffs and face off against the Nets.

Russell and Beal vs Kyrie, Durant and Harden.

All offense. All fireworks. First team to 150.

 

Do I think the Wizards would be better off with a league average PG over Westbrook? Yes. I think every team in the league who wants any chance of advancing in the playoffs would be better off with a league average PG over Westbrook.

Do I think that as usual, Westbrook is putting up hellacious points, rebounds and assist totals while doing very little to actually seriously boost wins? Yes. As evidenced by all his impact metrics and the fact that for a majority of this nba season the Wizards have scored less points than their opponents when Westbrook has been on the floor.

Have his “clutch” minutes this season been extraordinary? Yes. But they are a tiny fraction of the total minutes he has played and thus do not even remotely come close to making up for the general bad play of his non “clutch” minutes.

Have the last 16 games been really good for him and their team? Yes. But it’s the same thing different year. Westbrook sucks for a huge portion of a season, he goes on a nice run and all of a sudden people act like the rest of the season where he and the team has sucked didn’t happen.

Not to mention have you sat down and looked at the quality of opponent over their last 16 games?Their last 16 Opponents(13-3 record over that span) have a .460 winning %. Orlando, Detroit, OKC x2, Cleveland x2, NO, Sacramento, LA minus Lebron.... That whole 16 game stretch they beat 1 high quality healthy team(Utah) and beat a couple .500ish or lower teams and the rest was the bottom of the barrel of the league. Cool, but not overly impressive.

They are 5 games under .500 in a **** conference. 538s WAR stat has him as 7th on his own team in wins added and just about any other impact metric you can find out there will give you the same results. What exactly are people celebrating? He still overall is not very good. A short, albeit impressive stretch against mostly bad competition doesn’t change that.

 

Lol WB was injured and got Covid, what bad luck last year.

 

Whose a league average Pg? Give me a couple examples of who you think you would switch westbrook on, and if you saw any of those games, westbrook has become the identity of the team although beal is clearly the best player. I'm curious whose league avg pg, give me 3-5 just to get an idea

 

PGs who I consider league average or who this season have performed around league average maybe slightly better and have played at least 800 minutes this year that would do more for winning than Westbrook include : Brogdon, Rozier, Both Ball brothers, Lowry, D.Rose, Dejounte Murray, De’Anthony Melton, Devonte Graham, De’Aaron Fox, Haliburton, SGA.

That’s a dozen and you might argue some of them are reaching a little higher than league average but this list doesn’t include the roughly 20 absolute locks that are easily above the dozen I listed.

I think it’s fairly easy to come up with 30+ PGs who would do more to help a team win than Westbrook.

 

Da;aron fox, Murray, Lowry, SGA are league average to you/ And also in the same boat as Melton, Haliburton, Drose?

Can you also give me what stats your using to base this on? HAve you considered there is more to the stat sheet ever? And if I get this right, I'm trying to understand the whole picture, you're best bet is that he is like an 18-20 minute player off the bench or as you said he should essentially be a bench player at best and wizards are worse than when hes on the court, so you also believe that if westbrook didn't play in those games because he is worst than off the court, or if he played less, the wizards would be winning more?

 

I don’t consider them all the same boat. I just started counting players that there is ZERO argument for Westbrook being better than. The list quickly got to around 20. Then I just started listing players that I think would be more impactful after those locks and I came up with those 12.

Aside from watching him play and his teams W column. There are a ton of numbers I look at 538, basketballreference, stats.nba.com, nbamath... Thinking beyond the stat sheet is exactly why I can see that a guy who averages a triple double doesn’t impact the W column as much as you might think.

One number I like to look at that I find particularly telling as to how negatively Westbrook impacts his team is basketball references adjusted shooting stat True Shooting Added. It aims to account for how positively or negatively your “true shot attempts” adds to your teams scoring compared to league average.

No surprise Curry leads the league this season. The most elite efficiency, mixed with high volume equals the most points added per true shot attempt in the league.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2021_adj_shooting.html

This season Westbrook is dead last in the entire league. Last season he was 11th to last. The year prior dead last again.

Edit: What should surprise no one....John Wall is 4th to last on that list, nipping at Russ’ heals.

His inefficiency, mixed with his high volume of shooting is the most damaging in the entire league to his teams ability to score efficiently.

I do think at this point Westbrook is best served as a 6th man type 26-30 minutes. There should absolutely be someone on your team who controls the ball more than him. He’s 5th in entire league in time of possession per game. That’s not a good thing.

Edit : I should add actually the Westbrook of last night is the Westbrook that would be a perennial MVP. Only 8 shot attempts. No 3s. Made his free throws. Scored smartly and efficiently and at low volume so his other more efficient teammates could do the bulk of the scoring.

 

You also shouldn't ONLY refer to the stat sheet though. Morey doesn't. Scouts do not. No one that promotes analytics say it's fine to ignore film.

Thinking 'beyond' the stat sheet is crucial to judging players, it's absolutely necessary.

 

This one of the most dumb post ever lol

 

This and covid recovery is what slowed him down in the bubble.

 

'Earlier this season' means this season, I think. With the Wizards. Not the Rockets.

 

He tore his other quad this season

 

Rockets are the masters at selling low on injured players.

Chris Paul injury, let's trade him at his lowest point in value.
Russell Westbrook injury, let's trade him at his lowest point in value.

 

So, now would be a good time to trade John Wall.

 

Quad means four -- like quadruple double.