I buy it, no way you injure your quad and come back at close to 90%, that's a large muscle that is going to hamper explosion and again, before any of this went down, Covid, he was playing extremely well. Also, CP3 is one of the most skilled players in the NBA but him being skilled I wouldn't say makes him better than others. He's more skilled than Lebron but Lebron is clearly better. More skilled than Durant, Durant is still better. Also, that team he won MVP on was like 6th seed IIRC? Not like they were expecting to win?
He has no roll guy because the Rockets do not have anyone over 6'9" that can finish around the rim strong. Harden doesn't have a roll guy either. Well, you don't need someone to be a starter but you need someone that can help Russ out when it's just him on the floor to help out Russ centric lineups.
What was his excuse the last three years of his career? Im sorry but if that was him at even 80%.......than we are done. We are never winning with him, ever. Do you know how bad it is to have 46 TS%.......like, let's say he's 100%, he's still getting sagged off, Harden is still getting doubled, he's still a bad decision maker, and we are here still. Him being at 100% is like what......50-52 Ts% that's still not good enough. He's simply not good enough. Right...but in this case...Chris Paul is better and we all know that. Yea, he didnt deserve the MVP. Harden or Kawhi did.
I think Russ has better IQ than people give him credit for. One of the things we did here was use him in the middle of the court off of Harden doubles and he'd usually make the right pass. The issue is his style of play, fast fast fast, makes it harder to make smart decisions. But he's completely capable of running half court sets and playing PG.
That is the knock, it works in the regular season when nobody is giving two farts about WB. In the playoffs the best coaches in the league are game planning against him. Decent is not enough, he has to be hands down among the best in decisionmaking. You're owed more than 40 million to get just a decent decision maker and a terrible one when he is 80%?
I don't really care that he's getting sagged off, I'm more worried about his finishing around the rim. If he loses that, he loses his best ability. Harden is always going to get doubled too, the sagging off thing...yeah I still don't care. I mean, we lost one of these games and he shot 50% from three lol. Its like Rondo, rondo gets sagged off and he's always performed well in the playoffs. I don't think it's that big of an issue especially when he's the only guy on the team that can't shoot.
Yeah but the first one to go has to be Eric Gordon.........then we try to offload Westbrook. Nothing against Eric but we need height and youth. He had a good showing overall.
If he's getting sagged off, than its easier for teams to rotate and double Harden. He's already pretty much losing it. He's never been as good these last three years, and he's slowly losing athleticism to compensate for it. Man that was the whole issue. The whole issue of why we lost was those Harden doubles. It completely mucked up our offense. And those doubles were possible because no one respects Westbrook's shot. Lu Dort hit shots in a game 7 and I guarantee you he's going to get sagged off of. Just because you make a few threes doenst mean people will guard you out there and they certainly wont for Westbrook.
I think decision making is hard to quantify. Some would say Harden has bad decision making because he doesn't take more shots and instead sometimes passes out of clear easy layups for another EGO brick...or how sometimes he'll do nothing but do step back threes. I think it's really hard to quantify, I don't think Westbrook is stupid. I think he just really struggles with shooting, it is really bad, it just makes it harder for him to dominate. Lebron though? Now that guy 90% always makes the right decision, it's amazing to watch really. Like, even his 3 point shooting seems like more of a bonus, if his team needs three, he'll drive usually but if his team is up 10 or something, he may launch a few because it kills you, right? "Oh, this guy is hitting threes now..."
honestly i think WB has a pretty good jumper , especially when he uses the glass. He's got to at least have the semblance of a jumper otherwise he's useless as a 6'4" capela .
Im fine with that(I love EG though ) but that is fine. We cant trade Westbrook cause then we would have to trade Harden.....which at this point....I guess ive come to terms with, because we are never winning with Westbrook.
Harden gets lazy, true but he gets away because he is the main man. I am also hard on Harden but you know, there are diehards who can send you hateful messages regarding Harden so I just back off mostly.
Even at his best...it wasnt good enough to be efficient bro. Well you just described what he is.....a 6'4 useless Capela (obviously he's not that....but his playoff production has me right there).
I don't think that's why we lost. I think it's exactly what Kobe explained. We make it easy to defend. He walks the ballup the court, the entire defense knows what we will do. It's predictable, just double him, he'll pass it to another guy, who will pass it to another guy...just run at them, if they don't shoot you've won the possession because most of these guys can't dribble or finish, except Russ...but Russ was being guarded by Davis. This is why once they sat down their true centers they took off. Game 1, remember how easy it was for both Harden and Russ? This video explains it well. Sure, they double off of Russ but the Rockets could have done numerous things to alleviate that. Every team has problems, it's better to try and hide those problems then...just doing it over and over again. Now Coach Nick says the Rockets WANTED the Lakers to double Harden, this is conjecture from him, I don't remember MDA or Harden saying that, but if it is true it's even more damning strategy wise for me since the Lakers were more than happy having EGO, ROCO, Tucker, Rivers, whoever else shooting the ball. Also, lots of credit for Davis, he was the key defensively for them as our short guys couldn't get past him or Lebron...having true atheltic bigs would have helped us this series more than anything else.
I've seen the video before. Do you realize he's spent the majority of the video talking about how Russ killed our spacing. Russ made it easier for Anthony Davis....Russ killed our spacing. Coach Nick has already done 3 videos and he's talked about Westbrook heavily in each game. Numerous things like what? Harden post up, Russ post up, that's not good offense. Harden an make the occasional cut but honestly that's not really helping matters that much because it means Russ has the ball in his hands more. Thus killing our offense because teams will invite him to score when he's not good at it. Lol why do you think they put Davis on Westbrook? Lebron played well but if we had actual spacing, they wouldnt be able to double like they are and that's the main reason we lost this series. We got out coached but Russ also just sucks. All of his metrics say that. No coach could come in and fix that.
It wouldn't matter if someone was 7'2. If they can't shoot/defend, they wouldn't see the floor and would exhibit the same issues of having non shooters next to harden.
You ignored everything else he said in the video if that is your take. He clearly offered several solutions and how the Rockets were playing into their hand. They put Davis on Westbrook because he's still a threat to score lol, if he wasn't, they'd put their worst defender on him, not one of their best. Also that Davis prevents Westbrook from finishing in the paint, which is his specialty. Metrics don't explain guys playing out of position or guys not being utilized well or bad strategy.
