no russ won mvp simply because the media didnt want to look stupid after giving harden shaqtin a fool mvp and leaving him completely off every single all nba team the year prior. Harden winning mvp after not making an all nba team the previous year would make the media look like the idiots they really are. They also said harden and dantoni wouldn’t work before the season that year. Harden has had to EARN everything he has gotten in the nba because if he slacks off for a second they won’t hesitate to screw him over on an award or accolade. the media also says harden should change his style of play to win a ring. That sounds good in theory except when you have idiots in the media who won’t give harden the benefit of the doubt if he does sacrifice his numbers. The media created the monster we see in James harden today. Them leaving him off allnba in 2016 was a slap in the face to player of hardens calibur. And harden has gone on record to state it will NEVER happen again
You completely ignored how I proved Wall was more turnover prone..... LOL. Have some self awareness here and realize a record of this conservation is kept that I can point to..... Now this would be a reasonable post. It's just hard to square with your other rantings...... With how much you denigrate WB you'd think there'd be much more of gap: John Wall WS48 last fully healthy season: 0.92 WB WS48 last OKC season/this year: 1.24/.98 But that's not the case. Wall didn't have a great history when the Eastern Conference was supremely weak and Western Conference was supremely strong. Your level of WB trashing doesn't match the level of his play. That's my point with you. Again.... you keep proving my point about Tjones. You don't even know what this argument was, but you just have to denigrate him and put words in my mouth. The level of your trashing never actually matches how bad a player it is, it just becomes hyperbole and putting words in someone's mouth. You and DD probably have some of the most storied history in the last ten years.
Russell Westbrook is an interesting player. He is a monster in transition and finishing. A great rebounder as well. He is the best athlete to ever play point guard. However he has flaws that just cannot be covered up. First he either can’t or won’t play off ball, which means he has to “be the man” to be impactful at all. The problem is he isn’t really very efficient at being the man so you don’t really want him doing anything except finishing and passing and won’t just do that... so it becomes a big problem. Second he cannot shoot. He is a horrendous shooter so teams just sag off him which takes away some of his athletic advantage. Teams can pack the paint and goad him into taking bad shots. Third he has poor basketball instincts. He literally just puts his head down and plays, he is as a result easier to game plan for than he should be. Fourth, the way to get around his horrendous shooting and to get him room in the paint is to surround him with shooters. However surrounding him with shooters isn’t impossible..but because Westbrook is a TERRIBLE defender, he has to be surrounded by shooters that also are really good defenders. Last year the Rockets... just to keep Westbrook on the court had to trade their traditional center, had to trade for a wing to switch and pick up Westbrook’s man, had to have 4 good shooters on the floor around Westbrook and ensure he was surrounded by good defenders.... and then his +\- was still worse than when it was just Harden. For all his amazing athleticism, when it is all said and done... he isn’t that good and that is why no one wanted him in trade except a Wizards team that wants to trade a talent but injured player making the same money. Westbrook is ultimately bad to anyone that isn’t just a casual fan.
Wall had a WS of .149 his last healthy season... WS isn’t the end all/be all anyway, but Wall’s was better than Westbrook’s under the parameters listed. Westbrook’s problem is that he isn’t good enough to be worth all the hoops a team has to jump through to hide his flaws. Westbrook is better at being “the man” than Wall... but Westbrook isn’t really all that special at being the man and Wall has more upside at being able to fit into a team. If nothing else Wall defends and in the past has been a satisfactory outcome three point shooter.
John Wall's .149 corresponds to 2016-17 season... WB had .224 the same year. I was just continuing the same metric another poster used to show how shitty WB was. Turns out Wall is a turd too.... Going to have to agree to disagree., Wall is going to have many of the same problems as WB. Wall played in the eastern conference when it was the LEASTERN conference and his team still sucked. For all of Walls supposed defense and shooting, the overall advanced metrics are eerily similar to WB.... and WB ain't coming off Achilles.
MDA system was simply not suited for Russ, especially with wholesale of 3pts. Harden/Russ are both ball-dominant players so that was another setback in chemistry. Russ is simply not the type of player that would settle for 2nd best in a team either. He is simply an athletic freak and if he had toned down on his ego then he would be a great fit with other stars. Trends do not lie when stars like KD, Harden, PG and Victor were simply not able to adjust with Russ. Same can be said about Harden as well when it comes to acquiring other stars but it is what it is.
Russ and the second unit was really really bad. CP3 and the second unit would absolutely dust the competition.. good times.
Russ can elevate any team to a low playoff seed due to triple doubles in the regular season. That’s it. His style of play will never be conducive to playoff success unless other superstars are on the team to bail him out. The empty stats people use to defend him are ironically why he’s such a terrible NBA player.
In a vacuum Westbrook is a better player... but we do not live in a vacuum. Westbrook doesn’t compliment other elite players well. Wall has plenty of flaws and issues... but he also compliments Harden and the Rockets better if he is healthy. Wall is a vastly better defender and that in itself is a big upgrade because the Rockets were disadvantaged with Westbrook on the floor. Wall also has a history of being a competent high volume three point shooter, and has been a good catch and shoot three point shooter. His weakness is mid range and pull up 3’s, something the Rockets discourage anyway. Will wall be flexible? I don’t know, maybe not. It is the great unknown but we do know Westbrook isn’t. Wall’s big concern is the Achilles, which wasn’t a full rupture, was on his non dominant leg and was almost two years ago. He has been practicing on it for many months without issue and he spent the off season playing other NBA players. It will always be a concern, but with the age of Wall when it happened and the circumstances, I am not as worried. No one thinks Wall is a sure thing... but we do know that Westbrook isn’t really all that great.
I think team is closer to a rebuild than they would like to admit. Wall, Cousins, Ego? They won't be here when the rebuild starts. If one focuses on longer terms.
A healthy John Wall is a better fit than a health WB.... but we aren't getting that. You need to pump the brakes on Wall.... he's never been a competent high volume 3 point shooter because he's never been a volume 3 pt shooter. He is a good catch and shooter on low volume. He was above average defensively when he was healthy.... and he was engaged. And like I said.... in spite of Wall's supposed strengths he was still just as overall good as WB on a terrible team in the LEASTERN Conference. John Wall's playoff numbers suck too in spite of being a better shooter and defender than WB and facing worst competition all year. For me, this is less about Wall and WB but more about Harden. Harden doesn't share the court well with other distributors based on non OKC history. Unless Harden changes, then why think this will be any different.
You don’t know if we are getting a healthy Wall or not. He has had a very long time to rehab from an incomplete tear and has been playing high impact and working out for months. All we know is Silas doesn’t want him to play back to backs. I am more optimistic than you that he will be healthy, but admit he could get hurt again. He is a massive up grade defensively. As far as shooting 3’s, he was shooting 4-5 a game... that isn’t a Harden amount but it is a pretty good number. He also will get more open looks than he ever has before. No, it isn’t a Harden issue... he is the most dominant offensive force since Jordan and what he does, he does better than anyone in the world... you don’t ask him to change, it is inefficient. You put players around him that compliment him. It worked with Chris Paul until he was hurt... it didn’t work with Westbrook but that is on Westbrook. We will see what happens with Wall.
At first, I honestly thought I was being trolled when he was suggesting that the best thing for the team was to have Harden take a back seat to Westbrook. I didn't think there was a chance he was really serious.
Even if he is healthy, he’s still going to have to get back to NBA level speed while getting used to playing with new teammates, especially another ball dominant guard. I think it was very understated how hard it is for guards like WB and Wall to integrate into a harden like type. We don’t get to be super picky about what players we get to put around Harden.... I would think that would be very clear now. I think we maximize harden to the detriment of maximizing the team.
I only saw Nooks post/response so I figured there are two posters who hate harden enough here that would suggest that .One is Fchowder the ayatollah regimes foreign affairs spokesman or this lunatic dmoreybang guy. I have both of them on ignore now. Can’t see their posts anymore
