I just looked it up for you, and the answer is no*. *There is actually one month where he only played a single game and scored 32 points on 70% shooting, so if you want to count that one, then he's done it one time before. But other than that, he's never done it. In fact, he's only ever had one month in his entire OKC career over 50% shooting (two if you count the 1 game month), but was only at 25ppg in that month.
What about months were he shot like 48% or 49%? 50% is an arbitrary cut off point for "playing well".
What in the world does this have to do with my response to the question I was asked? I was asked if Westbrook had months in OKC where he scored 30+ on 50% FG. I answered his question. Why would anyone even want to compare the raw field goal percentages of Harden and Westbrook? It wouldn’t tell you a damn thing. Career 3 point attempts Westbrook : 3208 Harden : 6394 2 point % Westbrook : .469 Harden : .511 Effective field goal % Westbrook : .467 Harden : .527 True shooting Westbrook : .530 Harden : .611
If we lower it to 47% fg and 27 ppg, there are two months over his 11 seasons - Jan 2018 - 27.1 ppg 48.4% fg March 2018 - 27.6 ppg 49.8% fg
So he's done it before. So we can't just assume "it's because of Harden". I'm sure Harden had a role but there are too many confounding variables.
I mean I'm fighting claims that Westbrook is a below average nba guard. So understand the context I'm debating with.
Yeah...so take out Westbrook, why were the Rockets struggling with OKC? Once again, why were the Rockets struggling with OKC? Russ was out. So according to you, offense should have looked much better against a lesser team. No russ. No excuses, why'd that go 7? That was not the best stretch of his career, come on now. Amazing the excuses everyone else gets, playoff wins don't matter, unless you're Russ, then it matters. Russ can put up good numbers but then he gets sent packing...Harden gets sent packing and you cite his numbers. OKC played the Rockets for 4 games to a tie. This was WITHOUT Russ, so you're saying OKC doubled HArden without Russ playing? If you ask anyone that watched that game, only you, and some others here, would take from that game 7 that Harden played well. The first thing you should know about analytics is that sometimes they are wrong and don't tell the true story. The true story is Harden was outplayed by Lou Dort. If it weren't for that block or a bounce here and there, Harden would have been crucified for that series. Your boy Russ shot well that night and helped out on a gimpy leg... oh, and you know he was hurt and you're still acting like that can't affect his play. No. Those lineups are not low sample size. .P. Tucker, .R. Westbrook, .J. Harden, .B. McLemore, .D. House Jr. Was one of our best lineups. Also, against good teams Harden's style doesn't work. Otherwise, we'd have championships by now or at least a finals appearance. You go under the pick and let him hit an open 2 point jumper? You realize that's exactly what he wants? Russ shot over 50% mid range lol. That's right, that's this year, he always shoots closer to that too. Also very difficult to defend an athletic roll man, it's really not as simple as 'going under the pick' you can give Russ open mid range shots, he burns you. You say that, you even claimed that Gobert could shut him down when the video was posted was a literal Westbrook highlight video. What happened? Russ got open 2 point shots. CP3 was on all-star teams and lost to who now? Utah and Josh Smith led Rockets? The year he won MVP the team was the 6th seed. Bucks coach is more like MDA, doesn't adjust, great regular season teams that get embarrassed in the playoffs. Bucks surround Giannis with nothing but shooters and oh yeah...Giannis was hurt from like the start of the 2nd game on? But hey, only CP3 and others get injury excuses to fit this narrative. Right, I don't care about playoff stats, no one should care about individual stats in the playoffs, the team should care about wins. Harden almost lost to CP3-OKC, he had bad stats that ame 7, was going to get crucified if they lost...he makes a game-saving block and people go "Hey, he dodged that one! I was about to call him a choker!" No one cares that much in the end about your playoff stats. You don't have to believe me. If Harden never wins you'll see how that affects his legacy. Pretty sure he's been to the WCF as a 2nd option with no James Harden. If your argument is he had Kevin Durant, cool. You can make this argument for every player that's ever won. YOU said he couldn't win as a 2nd option. I just simply replied that he has.
Not only that but that Westbrook is holding the team and Harden back from winning. That we had a better chance at beating the Lakers essentially without Westbrook playing. I honestly wish these people would talk with Harden, I bet he'd defend Westbrook better than anyone here. Harden is the one that wanted Westbrook to break plays off for example lol because Harden knew Westbrook needed to get his groove back after the injury.
Where are you getting this info? I'd be interested to see it. NBA.com has him at 40.7% for the regular season, and 38.2% in the playoffs.
I'm not sure how NBA.com is looking at it and what it counts as a 2 point shot. I look at the shot charts, and also I consider the "2 point shots" as midrange, the 'At Rim' shots are layups-dunks, which he's always been good at. You can go to nbashotcharts.com and find them for any player I think and check it out, it should be around 50%, not that low 40.7. I do not know how NBA.com counts those shots. Also, this series, you can look at the shot charts on bball reference for each game, you can see he hits about half just that series alone. The thing is if they are counting longer shots as midrange it might be lower, some stat sites will define them by zone rather than distance, usually for Russ the closer to the rim he is the better. Honestly, I'm not sure where to even find shots by zone or distance on NBA.com
I agree. I was just posting the FG % for both players and you just elaborated exactly what I said. You seem to be providing good arguments for Harden being the shooter that plays off WB a bit moreso. It's absurd that Harden can't play like Klay for short bursts.
I haven't been to this site before but I went to it and typed in Westbrook 2019-20 season and it gave me this. According to this he's even worse at midrange than nba.com has him, 185/469 is only 39.4%. Here's the nba.com version - https://stats.nba.com/players/shoot...r=1&PerMode=Totals&CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*hou
At the end of the day I'm not sure advocating for mid range shots is based on efficiency of the shot but rather preventing defenses from loading the paint and running off our shooters at the three point line and just giving us the open mid range.
Because James Harden cant do it all by himself and we have 40 million on the roster as wasted cap space. Harden's net rating that whole series was positive, we LOST all the minutes when he sat. And we should have been up 3-1 if DANTONI HAD CALLED A TIMEOUT. Or if PJ and Gordon had any chemistry on inbounds plays. That series was still close with or without Westbrook. We blew them out with and without Westbrook. Because Harden can't play 48 minutes. Also Lou Dort is one of the best Harden defenders ever. Yea I did say, that's with James Harden carrying his ass. It doesnt work against good teams and it didnt. No, against good teams Harden cant do it by himself. He cant carry a garbage second option. We would have had a championship if Harden's second option came to play any year except one and then got injured. That Chris Paul team was championship level. Yea Just because that's what he wants, doesnt mean he's good at it and it doesnt mean it produces good team offense. He's never shot 50% from the mid range in his career....like ever. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/westbru01.html Go look at shots by distance, never hit 50% from 2 in his career. And that shooting gets worse in the playoffs. Gobert did shut him down when he played against Utah in the playoffs. Using that same strategy. He might have more success against Gobert than Davis but the strategy will be the same....and effective...because Russ is garbage. Yea it was....it was literally one of the most efficient stretches of his career and I'm not joking. And that was because of small ball. I mean that's the point, Russ didnt put up good numbers and we got sent packing. And that's been the trend for him the last 3 years.....so what am I supposed to say here? They played him to a tie because the team would die every time Harden sat? Like whats the argument here, Harden can't do it by himself. He never could, no one can. Harden played well enough to win, he was still a plus 9 for the game? He didnt have a great game but he were consitstently winning the minutes he was on the floor every time he was out there. Harden had one sub par game out of 7 but he was still very clearly our best player on the floor. Russ...was a minus 9 for that game. But you cant just one game plus minus right? Too bad its been like that for the majority of our games and the data reflects that. They don't tell you anything, the numbers are what they are. Im not basing this off of one metric, Im basing this off of years of data and watching Westbrook play. Than so was Westbrook. We were ONLY IN THAT POSITION BECAUSE WESTBROOK THREW GAME 6. Like did you miss that game before? Harden would have been crucified of course, but he's crucified every year, its nothing new. He's being crucified now by the general media. Im gonna ask this again, what was his excuse the last three years for this exact type of play??? If this is him at even 80% then he's garbage and we are never winning with him. He will never be good enough. And he hasnt been good enough even when he was healthy the last three years. He's been in decline. All Star teams?? You mean Blake And DeAndre Jordan....you are never winning with those guys are your second and third best player. And those guys consistently let Cp3 down in the playoffs. Its a team sport dude, one dude cant drag guys to the championship, not how it works. Josh-Smith Led Rockets huh...if thats how you wanna view it lol, and it wasnt because of Cp that we had that comeback. And Black Griffin was hurt(again LOL) in that series against Utah. Just Cp3 by himself. Westbrook lost with Paul George against a rookie, embarrassing. Yea and that should tell you something about his MVP too....but thats neither here nor there, I dont care about that. No he got hurt in game 3....but they still got killed in 5 games. Them going down 3-0 even with hurt Giannis was still ridiculous. And all they had to do was build a wall around Giannis. And Giannis and Cp3 injured and on their worst day are still better than Russ......like MUCH BETTER. Russ when he was healthy was still garbage. You blame everybody for the guy not being good except himself. The fact is if you cant shoot, you can game planned against very easily in the playoffs. Giannis plus shooters, isnt a bad strategy, Giannis himself cant shoot so teams take advantage. I would take Khris Middleton over Russel Westbrook any day of the week, he's simply not a good player anymore. And if people can do that to Giannis who is so so SO MUCH better than Westbrook, than what do you expect from Westbrook? You dont expect a championship. Okay stats are important because it shows you which players are producing and which arent. Advanced stats are important because they show you which players have the highest impact metrics will have the highest contribution towards winning. No one here is celebrating Harden's stats in a loss. They are sitting here seeing how Harden could have his best playoffs but his second option almost single handedly brought no value to winning and was hurting us out there. People who actually took a deep look would not blame Harden if we lost that series to OKC. Smart people would evaluate that the roster around Harden isnt that good and dies any time he's not on the court. That doesnt mean people are right, like I dont care what people remember. Im evaluating who were winning players out there and who werent. Harden, Tucker, Coivington and Gordon all came to play. Westbrook was not a winning player. That's why stats are important, they allow you to evaluate performance and who was the most conducive to winning. And Westbrook was not that guy.
This is a fair argument, I think this has a lot of validity, but the efficiency is still the bottom line. There would be a required minimum percentage you'd have to make those open midrange shots at in order for it to be a net gain on offense. You'd have to make them often enough that the defense is forced to adjust.
