“People are just not going to guard Russell Westbrook in the Playoffs”

An outlier is a fluke. He's on a steady decline since he peaked at 85% in 2017. His shooting percentages are down across the board except for within 3 feet of the basket.

 

My body is reggie.

 

One would think that espn has a gym on campus. He needs to spend his time wisely and not eat any damn fast food.

 

Ffs. What does that say. Don’t bother replying.

 

My early season pick for quote of the year on Clutchfans.

 

Agree with this and I'll also note that when I looked up the stats of how many 3s CP made when assisted from Harden - he was shooting BELOW 30% this past year- right next to Michael Carter Williams in worst 3pt shooting percentage when assisted from Harden. Now there may be legit reasons for that like defenses refusing to help off him resulting in contested 3s...but since THOSE types of stats aren't free I'll just note that for my own eye test I observed Paul always seemed like a reluctant shooter when he got the kickout from Harden. I feel like he often took the opportunity to slow it down and set up another one on one matchup that generally didn't work out well. That makes me have a little hope that maybe the real impact of WB won't be that negative offensively....but defensively we will definitely take a step down unless we manage a high quality wing defender(come on home Covington!)

 

If WB fixes his damn shot this upcoming season, it's a possibility him and james could average 27+ PPG.

 

I can live with russ on 31% on open threes.

Its the crappy 33% on long twos I dont like.

If he scales back his overall shot attempts and cuts his long 2s in half and replaced them with 3s. He becomes efficient enough because of how dynamic he is in other ways.

His biggest problem, offensively, has always been his love for the pull up long 2.

I'd love for him to eliminate it entirely and replace with pull up 3s but I'm not naive enough to believe that's possible.

 

No one is gonna guard a recent mvp in the playoffs? Please

Maybe not at the 3 point line, thats about it

 

One thing people aren't mentioning enough is that Russ shot 36.7% on corner 3s. And likely on worse looks. It's essentially a long midrange shot which is something he's been decent to good at his whole career. I expect him to live in the corner when Harden has the ball a lot like PJ does

 

So what have the other teams been doing the past 6 years in the playoffs? And how far have Westbrick teams gone in the playoffs the past couple of years?
You don’t guard him. They wait for Westbrick to start feeln himself force the issue, burp up bad shots, and shoot his team out of the games and the playoffs. Don’t let those regular season triple double mvps stat padders fool you.
Until they prove it in actual reality get off the ****n 2k simulations.

 

Exactly. And every year post Durant, these same talking heads ranked the Thunder over the Rockets to start the year. Even before George arrived, it was all Mr. Triple Double doing it all by himself. But now that Westbrook joins the Rockets...its meh...the Rockets got worse.

 

Click on it and then downvote the hell out of it. That's what I do LOL

 

You know you were westbrooks trip dub mvp campaign chief right?

 

Can stretch it all you want, but WB is going to have to have a career year from 3 for us to meet our lofty expectations.

All the players that are left to shoot in the playoffs are better at catch and shoot than their average numbers. That's a weak argument. In fact, Russ is one of the players in the NBA who has too small a gap between his overall average and his catch and shoot.

 

He eats Fast Food, Slow Food, Moderate Food. If it's food, you guessed it- he's eating it.

He sleep-eats too.

When he eats out at the Cheesecake Factory- they hand him the menu and he immediately says "YES!"
- One of everything please.

When he goes to a Mexican Restaurant he orders "Fajitas for Fifty".

 

No bro, Bennet only fan now? Explain.

 

The irrational hate is out of control regarding Russ. I thought the Harden bashing was out of control but this is just pure hate. Look I have serious reservations about this thing to, but I’m willing to give it a season or two but the media seems to be hell bent on hoping we fail.

 

I think they're wrong, and that defenders will be wrong to think this way.

Yes, Westbrick is named so for a reason, but his corner threes are respectable (albeit short history of such). Additionally, his catch-and-shoots are pretty decent too. If he sticks to the corners while Harden is a ball-handler, then he would see his historically best three-point areas as a recipient of a dump off pass. His 29% overall is being dragged that low b/c his low conversion on ultra-long-distance and pull-up threes. Take those out, and he's not horrible. He'd also make for a great cutter w/ all that athleticism.

But then imagine the benefit of having that gazelle tire out the defenses when he leads a unit himself or when we need to give Harden some on-court rest. He would have to buy-in though, and who knows how that will go.

 

When he shoots 15 shots or less OKC almost never lost. In those games he was incredibly dangerous and under control playing within the team offense. The overwhelming cause of his lapses was Q4 Hero Ball chucking. He was tired, frustrated and shot from bad angles. He stopped being creative like James.