Russ has been bad - but he also hasn't been given a chance

Don't look at the percentages and go back and watch the videos to see what he is doing. He is driving down the court and pulling up for mid range shots without any regard for what is going on around him. This is not a new phenomenon. This is what he has done for much of his career. He was different the first 3 games and people go their hopes up.

 

Very good analysis. I have been feeling the same. The only way that Westbrook can work here is by surrounding him with quality shooters and scorers. Guys that Russ is willing to defer to. The lesser the surround cast is around him, the MORE he will take it upon himself to shoot. He will shoot less, if there is better talent.

 

He will ISO less, if there are better shooters around him. They correlate.

 

i agree we need to give Russ more time to adjust. But the truth is that right now he does not look like a good fit on this team. it's on coach, James and Russ to get this worked out.

 

lmao, "hasn't been given a chance"

he had plenty of chances this season but resulted in 22% from the 3.

The coach obviously isn't putting him in the most optimal situation but if you expect that to change, then you'll have to wait until Dantoni exits from the team.

 

I’m with you on this one. We need to run a different offense when Harden is out of the game. You can’t just plug in another guy and expect him to execute Harden’s game plan.

All of our players want to stand on the 3 point line and watch Westbrook go to work like he’s Harden. It doesn’t work. We try to stay alive and wait until Harden comes back in and then the offense starts working again.

Something needs to change. When Harden sits you need a new game plan. You need to run a different offense. Maybe you even slow play during that time to limit the number of shots taken and get hyper focused on defense.

I don’t have the answer. I’m not a professional coach. I do know that you can’t play the same when Harden is on the court and when he’s not though. I’m sure about that.

It’s like when we had Dream. You didn’t keep feeding the ball to Chucky Brown and Charles Jones in the post when Dream took a breather.

 

i see this as a weakness in our coaching. i have yet to see the innovation i felt like we needed to have as part of bringing Wesbrook on board. This is not a "they'll just figure it out, kinda thing". MDA needs to actually use his basketball IQ to figure out how to maximize what Wesbrook does well and minimize what he doesn't do well, in a way that doesn't undermine what harden does well. That's that math problem MDA has to solve. that's his job. And i really have yet to see anything at all that deviates from the way we have been operating for the last couple of years. There has been zero adjustment as far as i can see it. I don't see anyone moving without the ball and i don't see any offensive scheme that suits Wesbrook's talents. We have basically relegated him to a jumpshooter, which is exactly the opposite of what we needed to do.

For the love of God, attack the problem, make some freaking adjustments, initiate some creative thinking, and get it done. This feels freaking lazy to me. I put a lot of this on MDA right now. I'm really frustrated at MDA. he is doing nothing; feels like he's just a turnkey coach.

 

God bless all of you who really think Westbrook is capable of changing

 

Yep. Blaming Westbrook is lazy. The coach has to maximize talents and minimize weaknesses of the team.

MDA and McHale just rode Harden to the WCF. They achieved the same level of success. MDA hasn’t done anything better than McHale yet nobody here talks about how great McHale was.

Who is a better coach we should be targeting? I don’t know. But I think it’s time to move on from MDA after this season.

 

actually blaming coaching as a reason why westbrook is bad is what's completely lazy. Where were the wb coaching sucks when the wb fans were all excited at the beginning of the year trying to serve up crow a few games in.

If MDA was the issue for westbrick as player, why has harden thrived and become an mvp under him? why has austin rivers essentially revitalized his career and has reiterated on numerous occasions how much he loves playing for MDA and other players as well? why has clint capela become one of the top centers in the league? why has PJ Tucker turned into one of the best role players in the league?

all this crying about westbrick and you still find people who still can't bring themselves to hold westbrick accountable for being as bad as he is. all because they thought they would be getting something entirely different just by showing up in the system when the trade was announced. The same system, guys are trying to use as some horrible excuse for westbrick. we were told this by the this trade was awesome group. you know how westbrick can be better in this system, stop playing like something hes not. you don't see guys like simmons and giannis out here jacking up jumpshots. oh and try playing some defense ffs

 

I filtered out the noise and here’s what is important.

All of these issues you bring up are coaching. Harden was already an MVP contender under McHale. So give McHale the credit. He’s the one who developed Harden if you want to go there.

The Westbrook issues about how is he is playing are coaching.

If he’s playing like something he’s not then bench his ass! It’s coaching.

If he’s shooting you out of the game then bench his ass! It’s coaching.

If he isn’t trying to play some defense then bench his ass! It’s coaching.

If he isn’t accountable for how bad he’s playing then bench his ass! It’s coaching.

Then try to maximize Westbrook’s former MVP skills.

Like I said, you want to blame the player. It’s lazy. The coach has the harder job of getting the most from the player and benching him when he is going off script.

Of course the coach needs to have a freaking script first.

 

false. a coach doesn't make you miss point blank layups. a coach can't put the ball in the basket for you. a coach doesn't make you shoot 22%. a system that frowns upon midrange especially when you suck at them doesn't tell you to shoot them. westbrick continues to do so and he sucks at it. his ego doesn't let him realize it. all this stuff you listed in on westbrick himself first and foremost. his iq is just too low to completely understand it.

lol westbrick being an mvp is one of the biggest jokes in nba history. him winning it over harden to this day is just that much more laughable. i can't believe we still have guys using that label as a way to uplift him. dude average 2 more rebounds that harden and that got him the edge as a "MVP" LMFAO. every other single worthwhile statistic, harden had him beat from team success to individual numbers. what a travesty that was

you think you can do all that to westbrick at this stage. and harden's BFF. did we not just see the circus of how bad melo fit here once they finally realized it wasn't working . imagine how that would be with westbrick and his $40 mil + salary for the each of next 4 years

It's MDA fault for westbrick being who he's been for the last couple years and struggling because he doesn't seem to fit the system that emphasizes everything he struggles with. That's just plain ridiculous and what's really lazy

 

Yeah 7/30 was more than enough of a chance to destroy the 22 point lead along with his boy Harden chucking 3s from the parking lot and getting stuffed by Poetl, it was about 65/35 Russ/Harden suckage last night in the 4th.

 

Westbrook’s numbers were near harden level though. You can’t just discount that. Yeah I think Harden should have won it but even if Westbrook didn’t win it, he was in the running. He wasn’t the scrub you are making him out to be.

Now tell me what has MDA implemented for Westbrook? Nothing I can see other than just let Westbrook run wild. Coach just pulled out CP3 and threw in Westbrook and didn’t change anything. No new plays or schemes. No new screens or motion offense. Nothing. Just roll the ball out there and tell them to play harder.

Blame the player if you want. But this coach is not maximizing his talent. He’s riding Harden just like McFail did. Same level of success to show for it too.

I have been a proponent of MDA until now. I expect him to find a way to differentiate the way this team plays when he has Westbrook vs Harden vs CP3.

My analogy earlier stands. When Dream sat down, we didn’t keep dumping the ball in to Chucky Brown. We changed the way we played. When Dream came back in, it was back to the inside out post game.

Rudy also benched Vernon freaking Maxwell. Hard decisions. That’s what championship coaches do.

MDA needs to improve. Always blaming the players is lazy. Even Bill O’Brien will tell you that.

 

I sure can discount it cause they weren't better. that's what matters. who gives af about 2 extra rebs that guys got out of the way for him for.

that's what westbrook does. he's a run wild player. Is this your first year seeing him actually play on a regular basis? He was never a half court player. Did the rockets just not become one of the top teams in pace just by adding 1 player. I'm sure that qualifies as some type of adjustment for 1 single player.

The rockets are out here playing 4 vs 3 with an "mvp" player. and this guy can't even take advantage of it. I mean how much more of a mismatch can you get

westbrick is a scrub in the sense that he has low bball iq and that he doesn't fit this specific system. he can thrive in another system where it caters to his ego but he still isn't winning much at the end of the day. Guys around here are wanting to win a ship. As long as he plays the way he does, that isn't happening here

 

Bringing up people like Chucky Brown, Maxwell, are not good comparisons. Sure I agree benching Westbrook during a truly awful performance could help, but he isnt like those guys. Westbrook is being paid as much as Harden, this is more like benching Clyde Drexler. If you're doing that, guess what your team is probably not going to be very good.

 

Name an adjustment MDA made other than let Westbrook run wild. Please name anything. It should be lots of things. But it’s not. You will be hard pressed to pull something out of your ass to keep arguing the merits of MDA’s masterful coaching.

We do the same thing if Harden, EG, Rivers, CP3, or Westbrook is playing the 1. It literally doesn’t matter. Same system no matter what the talent is.

If we had MDA instead of Rudy T we would have been dumping the ball into the post no matter if it was Dream, Charles Jones, Zan Tabak, Mark Price, etc. lol.

The coach has to adjust to the players. MDA isn’t doing it. Neither did McHale. Same results. His time is almost up.

At least Tilman realizes that.

 

did you just not read? Apparently not. MDA isn't the perfect coach but westbrick and his play is far from MDA's personal issue.

The only thing Tilman is realizing is his decision to get WB probably isn't working out like he envisioned. I laughed the other day when I found out what him and his son were saying during their game here against Dallas last sunday. Boy were they upset and so many wtf's were being dropped