I don't have the service to do that, it's a paid service, but someone earlier basically showed that the Mavs would also be better off with KP. I also in that post explained in depth why I feel those stats are not the end all be all for a discussion...and how for example, comparing Brewer's net rating to Westbrook net rating is extremely flawed. I also don't know why the teams overall performance is being ignored in favor of net rating, all that should matter is the team's overall performance.
I was the guy who posted and said I agreed with the KP numbers though. I do think they would have won more games if he was off the court. The Brewer thing, unless we're talking about different threads, was about win shares per 48 and not net rating. Win shares are an advanced stat that that I don't personally think is very good. Also, what do you mean overall performance being ignored in favor of net rating? Net rating is overall performance. I'm not sure what you mean.
Yes, I remember, but even you concluded that they needed to play him to get past that...so then that contradicts that they shouldn't play him at all because they need to play him to make it work. The Brewer thing was in this thread, I'm not picking on @Williamson but here it was... This is a flawed way, explained by the creator of the stat himself, to use the stat. Overall team net rating is good. The overall team offensive rating is good. The overall team defensive rating is good (for an MDA team that is). The overall team record is good. This is all happening with Westbrook playing the 3rd most minutes on the team. IF he is as bad as his individual net rating says he is, then the team should be doing a lot worse, after all, the individual rating of Westbrook literally says if you just read the numbers without context...says that He's worse than Corey Brewer... Now imagine giving Brewer all of Westbrooks minutes. Do you think the team would be 14-7, a game out of 2nd place, 3rd in offensive rating? This is where the stat is lying because it is rating Westbrook low because of what he's been asked to do in comparison to Harden doing the same thing on the same team. That is what it is really saying is Westbrook is playing worse than Harden. It's not saying he's playing the worse on the team because you can only compare his net rating to someone with similar usage.
Up to this point, it’s been a lot of Harden’s play offsetting Westbrook’s bad play if u ask me. We are very very good when Harden is on the court, and it is enough to make up for the stretches when it’s just Russ on the court and we typically get killed. We can say that Westbrook’s ability to create takes the load off of Harden, but then he also puts more pressure on Harden to overcome his terrible high volume shooting. So far, we’re only a .500 team when Harden doesn’t score at least 40, so James is still under an incredible burden. I can live with missed shots only up to a point. Harden can be bricking all night and still drop 40. He will still command a constant double team giving us a 4 on 3 and opening up the floor for the rest of the team. The same can not be said for Russ. Russ will give u 19 points on 30 like he did against the Spurs or 19 points on 27 shots like he did against Toronto. It’s really inexcusable for a guy who clearly can’t shoot to brick up until the point he’s going 7-27. Harden is a shooter, so u can understand if he keeps launching from the perimeter. Russ is a known non-shooter who has deluded himself into thinking he can shoot. the problem I had with CP aside from the constant injuries is that I no longer believed he was capable of elevating the team...Russ can elevate the team, but he can also torpedo it...when he’s having 1 of his truly atrocious nights, he can absolutely kill u Russ shot 5-20, 5-21, and 11-31 in 3 of his 5 playoff games last year...let him do that here and we are done last year CP had a range of C-B but was at a C far too often...Russ has a range of A-F...that is how I look at them...I was willing to bet on Russ turning in some A’s from time to time and a good amount of B’s...dude is out here turning in F’s lately
Okay, but doesn't it matter how Westbrook is playing? The whole strategy of this team that has 2 max players who are both basically point guards is "48 minutes of HOF point guard play." So sometimes we have both, but for most of the game, it's either Harden + 4 or Westbrook + 4. I think it's worth looking at how those lineups are doing. And it's disingenuous to frame this as "well of COURSE he's not as good as Harden, we can't compare him to Harden!!" Nobody expects him to be as good as Harden. The problem is that Harden lineups are winning, and Westbrook lineups are losing. The expectation is that the Westbrook lineups are winning, but by less than the Harden lineups. If Westbrook is as good as his fans say he is, these Westbrook + 4 lineups where he's running the show should at least be net positives. It's fair to expect that. But they aren't, and it's worth pointing out that this is a problem. If we want the rockets to be a real contender this year, the Westbrook + 4 lineups have to be better.
We kind of agree though. I always thought Westbrook worked with Durant because he made up for Russ's bad nights, same as Harden does. Why I think Russ will work better with Harden than durant in the playoffs is because of Durant's mentality. We've seen it in OKC and in GSW. Durant is cool just chilling sometimes on the court and letting other guys take over. Harden is not. Harden is not going to take a whole half off and let Westbrook do his thing, nor will the team let that happen. I doubt it's going to be as bad as it was the past two games, guys have slumps, Harden came into the season shooting for crap too (and EGO) and Westbrook had to get more shots as a result of Harden being double teamed. But no one talking about how the first 5 or so games Westbrook was basically shooting near 50% from the field? Everyone goes through hot and cold streaks and it would be nice that whenever Russ's shooting gets ice cold people aren't trying to kick him off the team. And while yeah, you'd like Russ to stop shooting when he's cold...just not his mentality man. It's like Jalen said, you don't tone down the aggressiveness of that kind of player, coach just has to learn how the channel it better.
Well that's another thing the creators of that stat said, half a season is too small a sample size, 20 games then is waaay too small a sample size. Mentioned above, Russ has already had hot shooting streaks playing with us. Obviously the guy is ice cold now but earlier in the year you can look at his shooting and compare it to Harden and Harden was ice cold and we still found a way to win those games thanks to just everyone chipping in. I just watched how the Rockets played against contenders this year, just the Bucks and Clippers, and I was satisfied. Satisfied last night that on the road, missing two key players too, that the Rockets are still playing these tough and at times outclassing them in games, a team with little chemistry and no mesh vs teams like the Bucks and Raptors that are all chemistry and mesh. Also, I was just talking about individual net rating and not team net rating, the latter is calculated differently I think than individual net rating. Personally, when I watch the games, as long as Westbrook isn't turning it over all over the place, the team does fine. There was a stretch last game where the team went on a run at the start of the game with just him out there. I saw that. I don't need stats to tell me what I saw was a lie. I saw Westbrook contribute like 10 points in a minute to close out the game. I saw that too. If the stats say what I saw was wrong then I don't know. I think stats confirm what you see on the court, nothing else. So I don't know what the lineup is saying, I do think that in that calcuation that 3pt% is a variable in that stat and therefore if Westbrook is out there chucking 3s with no harden on the floor he's bringing down the teams net rating without actually being this huge negative force on the team. But the team is performing well, for me, that just comes first before which lineup is doing this or that. Maybe Westbrook's play will improve when Gordon comes back, after all, the start of the season had Gordon on the court and he was just fine.
Russ was getting a lot of praise to start the year. We had dudes ready to serve up undercooked crow after like 3 days. Russ was getting love. It’s mostly been downhill from then tho. Russ has only shot above 30% from three in 5 out of 20 games this season. 5! Why the hell does this dude keep shooting so much from deep? 18% of his shots are from between 16 ft and the 3 point line, and he shoots just 33% from there. 44% of his shot attempts are from areas where he shoots 22 and 33%. It’s understandable that people are upset with a guy who refuses to understand his limitations.
This is where Harden has to lead. I know it's not his responsibility to make Russ shoot better, but he said that since he and Russ are friends that they'd basically be able to criticize each other. Harden has to be like yeah, it's cool to come out in the 1st half and see if you got the shot tonight because if he does? Basically game over for the other team that night...but once it is clear you don't, stick to your strengths. Obviously coaching hasn't gotten to Russ about that in the past, maybe Harden can get through to him, he has to, because another star player isn't landing in our lap anytime soon. This is basically it. We may be able to trade Russ to a team desperate to be relevant for picks and prospects, but that won't be enough for Harden's twilights years. This is it for Harden, he has to unlock the best out of Westbrook if the coaches can't. Lebron would, Lebron is always coaching players, telling them as a player what they need to do and how they should play to better help the team, and if Russ is going to just put up 30 shots and not hit even a quarter of them then someone has to reign him in because Russ is that dude that thinks he's going to make every shot. Which isn't even rare for players of his caliber
You are exactly right, but.... Not really worth it. If it’s a stat saying Westbrook is bad then it’s small sample size or flawed. Notice you don’t see him saying the same stats for Harden are flawed or claiming small sample. Just an acceptance. The same stats that are claiming Luka and Giannis are playing amazing. The same stats that in the past did show Westbrook to be a positive when he was playing well. They just can’t be trusted if they say Westbrook is bad.
Tonight is Russ's best game as a Rocket. This is exactly how we need him to play. Finishing layups, good energy on loose balls, finding the open man on cuts.
As I watch this game, Russ sure doesn’t look like a net negative to me. If he has more games like this where he attacks relentlessly we will be awfully tough to beat
We all gotta hope that his knees and his wind get where they need to get after not working out all offseason. There have been a few games where he quite honestly just looks more active and athletic. Tonight was one of those games.
We win a title with the Westbrook we got tonight. He was great, and extremely controlled in attacking a defense not focused on stopping him. I would like to say this is him figuring something out, but I fully expect him to go 5-24 with 15 jumpers in the next game,
