Nothing. Win or lose, the script is 'rigged' to always favor Westbrick. Dr. Goebbels would be proud of the ESPN propaganda machine.
It seems they all want to justify their selection, even SAS, and the only argument they can come up with is that the Rockets domination means Westbrook has less around him. Rigged. Yes. Nobody is willing to admit they were wrong. But they were.
Maybe things are starting to change now that the playoffs arrived and these sports writers are watching entire Thunder games instead of just seeing Westbrook highlights and reading the box score. Exhibit A (sent to me by @Pizza_Da_Hut) is this article from The Ringer. The author discusses how, although Westbrook is amazing to watch, his style of play (along with other non-Russ factors) has slowly dragged the Thunder franchise down to where it's now ALL about him, ALL the time. A sample: When he rumbles across half court, pounding the ball like a sledgehammer, he worries not about spacing or effective field goal percentage. He has his own orbit, his own supercharged strategy. Russ Russ-es. He thrives on drives, with a matador’s balleticism in the face of a charging rush and the bull’s goring horns. He is, in a word, punishing. In another, astonishing. He is my least favorite athlete.
As long as media conglomerates like ESPN, SI, Yahoo, etc. continue to pump Westbrook, that's what will happen. You'll always have outliers like this Ringer article, but the overwhelming majority of people love everything that Westbrook does, are actively rooting for the Thunder, actively rooting against the Rockets, and think that James Harden is a flopper. It's just the way it is, and it all starts with the 4 letter network.
All of america is against us. This must be what it felt like to be a miami heat fan or warriors fan. At work everyones for westbrook. On youtube comments and nba reddit everyone is for westbrook. Literally everyone outside of houston wante us to lose
Zach Lowe said on his podcast that current players have told him that they would vote Westbrook for MVP but never want to play with him. OKC doesn't have a bright future. Westbrook can stay there putting up guady numbers while not coming close to winning anything of significance.
People blame Westbrook for chasing off Durant, and they also blame Presti for making the wrong decisions, like letting Harden go so he could pay others, including Kendrick Perkins. There's some truth to that, I guess, because Presti could have been smarter. The real culprits, though, are the team's owners, who were too cheap to pay the luxury tax to keep that budding dynasty together. First they steal a franchise, then they crap all over their new toy. One of the worst owner groups in the league is in control of that team.
This is simply not true. They are like the 10th youngest team in the league and already a 6th seed. To put this into perspective, they are the 4th youngest team in the playoffs. Their average age is almost identical to the Bucks, Nets, Raptors, Wizards, Lakers, Magic, Celtics and just .3 years higher than the Suns. - Adams, Sabonis, Christon, Abrines, Roberson, McDermott, Kanter, Oladipo, Jerami Grant are all less than 25 years old. - All of those guys are assets under team control. 3 of them are rookies. The only rotation player over 25 is Gibson. - Their franchise player is 28. - They won 47 games and finished 6th in the West after a top 5 player in the NBA pranced away in free agency with nothing in return. - The most overlooked fact here is the myth that Westbrook won't improve, just like people thought Harden couldn't improve just because he was already putting up huge stats. Westbrook might show up next season a much better leader and team player. That's a bright future even if they don't make major additions, despite the fact that they are down to the #3 seeded team of the best player in the NBA. Apparently people have forgotten that the half the battle of having a bright future is landing a top 10 player to start building around.
They won 47 games but had the point differential of a 42-43 win team. They have limited flexibility and reside in an unappealing market for free agents. Roberson will be a restricted free agent this summer, so if they pay him then they'll have even less flexibility. There is no special player among those young guys that u listed. Maybe they make the 2nd round once or twice in upcoming years, but that's about it. That's not a bright future to me.
https://theringer.com/2017-nba-playoffs-oklahoma-city-thunder-russell-westbrook-bench-786b316a9010 "With Westbrook on the floor, this team is among the best in the NBA. When he rests for even a moment, it instantly turns into a trash inferno, stoked by sucky, sub-NBA scrubs. I don’t know if he’s the NBA’s best player, but the argument for calling him most valuable is clear. We’re witnessing his VORP in real time, and it is massive." Laying it on a bit thick now.
A perfect retort to that comment : https://theringer.com/2017-nba-play...-westbrook-oklahoma-city-thunder-264563760c34 "As his Thunder have fallen behind the Houston Rockets 3–1 in their first-round playoff series, the referendum on Westbrook has become increasingly vital. Could a player who averaged a triple-double possibly be hurting his team? Certainly not in the microeconomic sense — the Thunder have been consistently worse when Westbrook has sat in the series than when he has played. His playoff counting numbers — averages of 35 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists — are even gaudier than during the regular season. The on-court/off-court data points have been used to buttress the argument on the essentialism of Westbrook. But within this narrow look come questions with a longer range: What of the exasperated veterans unable to conjure a rhythm as the Russ show prattles on? What of the stunted development of the Thunder’s young players? What of his undeniably poor shot selection? What of the do-it-all end-of-game approach? What of the unyielding fan base blind to the flaws?"
Tom Haberstroh did a breakdown of who else happens to sit when Westbrook does, and the impact. See the video under "Why the Thunder are getting trounced when Westbrook is on the bench". Hint, it has something to do with their only defensive big sitting every time Westbrook does. http://www.espn.com/nba/
But they made the playoffs as a sixth seed. Record-wise they are better than Memphis and Portland. Of the basement playoff teams, at least the Thunder were top tier.
LMAO, top tier??? I don't think 'top tier' means what you think it means. Amazing how someone can come away with this notion after just watching 5 games of this series. Truly amazing.
Nope, we will now have to listen to... if Westbrook played for the Spurs then they would be a better team.
Not at all. The Thunder were nothing more than a cupcake opponent, in many ways the worst team in the playoffs in the West.
Westbrook is a beast and I wish Harden would pull up from mid range more often than the pull up 3 point or the dancing pull up 3.
Rocket fans still have to weather tomorrow's sports media landscape. Our national nightmare ended today, but it officially ends the day after tomorrow when the media purges all their Russ fluff pieces they were hanging on to.
