Of course I'm gonna compare them tmac1 just said WB is in another dimension in the whole league! Or do you think Dwight doesnt count when he clearly had LBJ, KD and Davis there? You dont have to be an all star to guard someone, WB stats get inflated because instead being guarded by 6'5 and up guards he's being guarded by 6'0. We saw that in the playoffs, Harden was shut down by some dude we don't even know. Of course other posters will say the other team's best defender is on WB but thats not all the time, because if you have Kawhi Leonard on WB then Anthony Morrow has to be guarded by Tony Parker. On the other side while WB guards the pgs its not like he is locking them down, in this game Parker had 10 pts on 50% shooting while being guarded by WB, if he took as many shots as WB he'd have 24 pts instead so IMHO he hasnt exactly been shut out of the game. I give props to WB for playing great, but like I said its not earth shattering Lebron had been doing this for years, and unlike WB he has been shutting the best player down. Dwight shuts entire offe nses down and grabd 11 boards yet he's supposed to be less than WB? I dont even think Harden is the MVP and he's supposed to be below WB? C'mon now
1) PG>SG only offensively, most teams try to get 3nD players at spot guys like Thabo, Wesley Matthews, Courtney Lee etc. These guys arent superstars but since they are 6'5-6'6 instead of 6'0 they are generally better defenders than the pg slot. 2) WB isnt gonna be guarded 24/7 by the other team's best player because of matchup problems, look at the Spurs for example if you have Kawhi guarding WB then that means Parker has to guard Anthony Morrow, same thing with guys like Steph Curry, Lillard etc these guys arent good defenders in the first place and then you ask them to guard somebody much taller than them? So what happens is opposing teams try to use schemes for example the Spurs can crowd the paint and try to keep WB in the perimeter and thats when they have Parker guard him, and then if he drives thats when Kawhi switches and takes him on, so if WB takes that shot he basically has a poor defender on him. On the other hand if it was Harden Pops can just put Kawhi on him 100% of the time and have Parker guard Bev so all of Hardens shots will be tightly contested. 3) Already talked about this, WB guards those guys but he hasnt been shutting them down. Great that he can be a two way player but not "earth shattering". When LBJ guarded DRose and reduced him to 5% FG in the playoffs, thats earth shattering. When WB guarded parker and he shot 50%...thats just ok. 4) Remember the time where WB brought OKC to the finals without KD? Neither did I In the NBA big>small because of their impact so while WB can put up a ton of stats, bigs are the one who do the real heavy lifting. Dwights 12, 11 and 2 might not be as flashy as 31 pts or whatever but his contribution on paint protection more than makes up for it.
I think you have to watch more OKC games. By your posts, I think you just read ESPN recaps and highlights. To your 2nd point, WB is RARELY guarded by the opposing team's PGs. Matchup problems be damn. They just cross match on offense and defense. Plenty of teams do that. Coaches don't want their PGs to guard WB. If you have watched OKC games, you would know. And with your examples, apparently you don't watch. Again to the game today. Parker guarded Roberson to start. You think Pop cares if Parker can effectively guards Roberson or not? He wants size and length and strength on WB. Green started out and guarded him the most. When he was off, it was Joseph. Joseph at least had the strength to guard, but he only guarded him b/c Pop had no one else. Now to the Portland game. Liliard didn't want to sniff WB. Matthews stuck him primarily. Again, you think Stotts care if Liliard guards anyone? No he doesn't. He usually has Liliard guard a jumpshooter anyways so he just floats on the perimeter. You know, those players we call "one dimensional." Or to the WArriors game. Klay guarded him most of the time. Why? B/c Klay is the WArriors best defender. Now if a team's best perimeter defender is a PG like Beverley then you will see him on WB. Like I said, very few PGs can or want to guard WB (or their coaches want them). Paul, Wall, and Bev are a very select few. 2) TP was a non-factor tonight. WB literally abused him on both ends. But yes, WB doesn't stop the opposing great PGs all the time. Who can? They're considered great for a reason. They're great. Can Lebron stop Durant? Durant scored 30 points on 50% shooting in the Finals in 2012. But he guarded him, and got props for that. Durant didn't guard Lebron on the other hand. Can Lebron stop Paul George? No, but he guarded him. Shutting down elite players are hard. But "willingness" to guard them is also applauded. It's called taking on the challenge and making them feel you on both ends. There's a reason most stars don't take on that challenge. It's draining over the course of a game, let alone over the course of a season. That's why you don't see Harden/Curry or guys like that do it. They can't. 3) To your last point, we're talking about WB this year. He's leaps and bounds better this year than at any point in his career. I can say with a straight face that I think he's the best perimeter player in the league. On offense, he's unstoppable (on the break, in the post, midrange, gets to the line - only weakness is bad 3pt shot selection). He rebounds, makes plays, and tries on defense. And please, stop comparing him to Dwight Howard. Just watch the freaking game. That's like comparing Harden to Noah.
I'm not WB is elite he obv is, but I dont like the fact that you say he is in a tier above the rest just based on his current sample size, Spurs didnt even take this game seriously nobe of their big 3 played more than 30 mins. Your posts tmac1 are just all centered on WB's point of view, the reality is coaches care about matchup problems because they dont give a **** about WB's stats they want to win a game. I watch plenty of games and thats why I know they use schemes and switches, rarely have I seen a game where the SF/SG guards WB 100% of the time they use switches and cross defend, for a jump shooter the worst thing you can do is put a short and bad defender like Lillard on him, that just gives a dude like Morrow a clear view to the basket. And regarding WB, lets be real he should be a SG not a pg. If he wanted to maximize OKC 's power he should move to SG so they can start Reggie Jackson, and then they can get offense pgs like Jameer Nelson or whatever, good/average pgs are common nowadays certainly more common than good sgs. If WB does that and puts up the same stats I'll admit he's better than Harden and belongs in that 2nd tier with Anthony Davis. Otherwise hes not better than Harden who puts up more stats and scores at better efficiency over a larger sample size. Lets talk about this again once WB has more games under his belt.
I can't take your posts seriously if you're just throwing out random thoughts. Spurs didn't take this game seriously? Duncan hurt his knee and asked to come back. Any normal game, Pop would have just rested him. Plus, Duncan was -34, Parker was -27 right? His bench played better so he played them more, esp. defensively. So your logic continues to be b/c WB is guarded by shorter players, he cannot be better than Harden b/c he's guarded by taller players? If that's your logic for judging players, well... The reason why I'm rating WB better than Harden (and Curry/CP3...) b/c of several reasons: 1) His production is better right now in less minutes. Insane production. 2) Coaches don't hide him defensively. McHale and Kerr do with Harden/Curry for instance. HUGE. For him to do what he does and still have to run through all those pick and rolls is just insane. Last player to produce at this rate and guard good players on a consistent basis like you said is the other "out of this world" player: Lebron. 3) WB wasn't regarded as highly when he was shooting 42-43%. He's shooting 47% now. Huge jump. I'll rate Harden better if he doesn't shoot 41-42%. Shooting % matters (you can bring TS% in here, but I can't rate a guy shooting 41-42% as "out of this world" good). I can say without checking the box score that Harden has had AT LEAST 10 games where he has shot less than 35% (that's more than 30% of the time). You do that once or twice in a playoff series and you shoot your team out of the series. He needs to improve his shooting %. He plays on another level if he shoots better (ex - Nuggets, Blazers, WArriors games). More games like those and he will reach that stratosphere. Not more games like 3-15. 4) His PER currently is 33.29. Best in the HISTORY of the NBA by a wide margin I might add.
1) Spurs are slumping, they just got destroyed by the Pelicans, so while WB's stats are indeed amazing he needs to get more games under his belt first, right now he only has a few games so a couple of huge games pump up his stats amazingly. 2) There's a wide difference between Lebron and Westbrook, when Lebron guards the other team's best player he usually shuts them down, in WB's case the pgs almost always get "theirs". So while it it commendable that OKC doesn't need to "hide" him as you say, the results are still different so IMHO you can't say WB is "out of this world". Lots of players guard the opposing team's best players all the time, Chris Paul does it Paul George does it, Deng did it so what makes WB different from those guys as an elite two-way player? What I'm saying is while WB is good, he doesn't deserve to be separated from the rest of the elite players in the league. 3) It's funny you talk about shooting percentage, because if we look at TS% (FG% that takes into account 3 pters and FTs) Harden has a higher TS% than WB: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/westbru01.html http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hardeja01.html So if you say Harden isn't so good because his scoring rate is so low what does that make WB who actually scores at a less efficient rate? Sure WB has a higher FG% but since he makes less 3 pters and/or free throws that means WB is one-dimensional, all he's good for is shooting mid range J's and or scoring in the painted area. It's fine since he's playing in OKC which has 2 low usage front court players, but that means you can't build a typical contender around with a low post threat because then WB will become Westbrick since he can't score on the perimeter or co-exist with other big men scorers like Harden does. 4) PER isn't as good a metric because it doesn't take into account efficiency. If you play on the court a lot and you have a high usage rate you will probably have a high PER. Again, I'm not saying Wb is bad I just don't think you have the right to put him in another tier above the rest of the other elite players when Harden himself can make a solid case for having a better season. I mean how can you even argue WB belongs with Anthony Davis when Harden has a higher TS%, has more assists, has more rebounds and is widely considered to be the MVP front runner? Dude is out producing WB and is more efficient than WB, yet WB is the one in another tier c'mon now lol.
