I have grown to HATE Russell Westcrook

Westbrook's bipolar nature is frustrating, but Morey and the front office had to know what they were getting themselves into when the acquired the guy. He has be the key cog in winning some games for the Rockets that they absolutely would have last last season. But he also has games like last night and goes through stretches where it feels like he's single-handedly torpedoing their chances at a win (like that awful stretch in the third with the missed dunk).

The efficiency and advanced stats look bad, but the end result is Harden is happy and the team is winning games. To me, that justifies nights like last night, and at least he's hitting his free throws at a decent clip this year (last night notwithstanding). But we won't really see whether the Westbrook gamble plays off until the playoffs. The roller coaster ride in the regular season is fine, but if he's got to be more consistent in the postseason or the Rockets are going to get bounced early.

 

>>> 2019 Chris Paul


2020 Rockets >>> 2019 Rockets


Harden’s efficiency with an aggressive sidekick >>>

 

He was ass in November, 21 PPG on 20 shots is hardly some impressive number. That was all on Harden.

He was legitimately amazing for most of December. After 2 complete disasters to start the month it seemed like something clicked. He starting playing smart, playing exactly like he should play all the time and I was more than happy to give him credit. That Westbrook is worth every penny of what he's making.Then on Christmas day, with the national audience he reverted to idiot mode. This isn't a hot cold stretch, it's I'm gonna play smart, then I'm gonna play stupid. It's not about fitting in so I don't want to hear that crap about "time to gel". It's about a bad shooter deciding to take bad shots, when we've seen he's more than capable of limiting those bad shots and being awesome when he wants to.

People spout that nonsense that you don't deserve Bestbrook is you can't accept Worstbrook. Like he's doing the franchise a favor when he chooses to play smart basketball. This is no better than a player choosing to not give decent effort in some games, something fans would rightfully be furious about. He should be December Westbrook all the time.

 

His 3rd quarter was maybe the worst quarter I've seen this season.
He did a few good things which I'll list first as there aren't many.
1. Got a few defensive boards and a couple of solid assists
2. Hit a mid range jumper in transition and ran for an outlet pass for an easy dunk.

The bad.....
1. Airballs a midrange jumper
2. Tries to inbound off Simmons back and fails.
3. Blows uncontested dunk
4. Blows a layup then an open corner 3
5. Fails an inbounds pass leading to Embiid basket.
6. Blows a putback down.
7. Gets stripped by Simmons in the last possession of the quarter which leads to a layup.

 

#intangibles

 

He did fine in the first half, he even led the come back and took the lead at the beginning of the 2nd qtr.
End of 3rd and beginning of 4th when he leads the 2nd unit is what concerns me the most. We routinely give up 10+ point leads during that period.
MDA obviously have realized this and started to put Harden back in early in the 4th. Harden will never get any rest.

 

Good thing, Sixers aren't an offensive juggernaut.

 

Rockets are 13th in rebounding this season

 

5th per game.
https://stats.nba.com/teams/rebounding/?sort=REB_CHANCE_PCT&dir=1

But it seems to depend on which site you use.

 

if you believe the results say that we are fine with Westbrook than it is clear you don’t understand NBA statistics. It is that simple. These things didn’t just become a thing this year. And we have been over it. You can look at all the players with Westbrook’s role. Westbrook is the WORST of those players. We can’t even count on a 40 million dollar player to bring more value than all of the minimum guys on his own team.

You are the mom of the bad kid in class who believes her baby would never do wrong.

“Mrs Westbrook your son was caught fighting, stealing and being a general disruption to everyone in the class...”

“not my baby!”

“Mrs. Westbrook we have everything on security camera, we have eye witnesses, we found the stolen items in his backpack. There is no denying it”

“Well what about on Wednesday when you said my baby was an angel?”

“yes Mrs. Westbrook he was great on Wednesday but Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday he was terrible”

 

Not a Westbrook hater, but when he shoots from three, I have the same feeling I used to have when Josh Smith shot from three...

No! No, no, NO! (when ball occasionally goes in) YES!

 

Simmons completely shut him down on defense. He contested all of the midranges and layups.

 

The results say we are fine because all that matters are team results, I guess you're not getting that?

You never answered my question because you know you are wrong. You saying he has the worst RAPTOR on the team.

If you give Ben McLemore Westbrook's minutes do you think the team gets better or worse? Because the stats you've shown me suggests that yes, if you give him Russ's minutes we'd play better. Anyone actually watching the games knows thats BS though yet you use these stats to determine the final worth of a player and they are never meant to be used that way. Their isn't a god stat that does that, it simply doesn't exist, period. If it did no team would ever draft busts anymore or make bad moves, it's not NBA 2k where a player's rating is his worth and there for everyone to see.

According to these stats, Herro is even worse than Westbrook!
Rubio is the best player on his team!
Ja Morant is also a terrible player, one of the worst players on his team.
Why trade for Bradley Beal? Raptor says he is also a bad player and detriment to his team!
Pascal Siakam is the 3rd worst player on the Raptors while Terence Davis is the REAL reason the raptors are winning! That's what the stats say.
Myles Turner? Trash, worst player on the Pacers.
Trez is actually better than PG13 too.

These are all statements supported by your stats...

Lol, read back a few posts, I clearly state the faults in his game. You are the exact opposite of what you project me to be anyway, you delight in his failures and can't wait to post about them.

The difference between you and I is that I don't let stats define what I think about a player. If the stats say Trez is better than PG13 I'm going to laugh and go "Clearly then that's not right."

Clearly Beal and Morant aren't bad players and detriments to their teams, anyone watching them play can see that. They play on bad teams and are asked to do more for those teams and this affects a stat like RAPTOR.

Anyone knows Turner isn't the actual worst playing player on the Pacers or that Rubio isn't the best player on the Suns (although he's pretty good for the suns.)

And anyone f'n knows Siakam isn't the 3rd worst player on the Raptors.

 

I see everyone is still here clubbing the dead baby seal.

We have a few “Never Westbrook” people who won’t let it go.

It’s clear that Harden wanted CP3 gone. He wanted Westbrook here.

It has nothing to do with stats. The team wasn’t looking at Westbrook’s numbers and saying, “wow, we need him because he’s so efficient and shoots the three so well.” They knew his deficiencies long before any of us ever did. Morey’s think tank was well aware of it. You Westbrook haters didn’t uncover some unknown mystery. So forget the numbers. They don’t mean ****.

This trade was made to appease your superstar. If you like having Harden around, then you have to accept Westbrook and get on board with the team.

If you don’t think Harden should have that kind of power, I get it. I don’t think he should either but that’s just how this particular sport is.

It is what it is. Harden’s call. Westbrook is here. You can root for him to succeed or hate on him the rest of the season. You can focus on his flaws or his strengths. Your choice. But nothing is going to change so you might as well get over it and enjoy the season.

The Rockets are doing well and have a great shot at winning it all, with Westbrook.

 

Seems natural, he's not a good shooter who thinks the next one will go in.

 

And As I have told you before I don’t rely on one stat. A combo of all. The combo of ALL is bad. You know along with the eye test.

Look up the raptor rating of every max player. Guess who is last? Quit trying to make some grand point that minimum salary players couldn’t do what Westbrook is doing. It’s dumb. They aren’t paid to do it.

 

Apparently you have the secret formula overall rating stats that NBA FOs have been searching for...

Or, as usual, you put way too much into +/- and need to be reminded again of its faults.

The eye test is why Westbrook is a max player, perhaps your eye test is wrong?

Except you used that stat to compare Westbrook with role players on our team and now that you realize that was a mistake to do you're trying to sidestep out of admitting that mistake.

Of course McLemore couldn't do what Westbrook is doing. That's the point, duh. That's why Westbrook is a max contract player and McLemore is a fringe NBA player.

 

And the point is we are still doing fine while integrating WB, a player that was going to be tough to integrate. What's important is that WB keeps trending up, lets not discount the majority of December where he was playing more within the system. He was good against the Nuggets and erratic against Philly.

 

The players on your list weren’t available for CP3 or if they were, Harden didn’t want them.

Look, obviously there’s a bunch of players any of us would have traded CP3 for instead of Westbrook. That wasn’t an option though. So what’s your point?

You wish the trade never went down because Westbrook has the worst numbers of max players. Ok. So what. Harden’s opinion is what matters most. He didn’t want to play with CP3 again. You should be grateful we got Westbrook in exchange for CP3 because if you think back to the the last year of the Dwightmare, you will remember how the team does when Harden doesn’t like the 2nd star. I know I never want to see that again.

Right now, Harden is happy. The Rockets are winning. We are half a game out of 2nd place. We have beaten most, if not all of the contenders. We have room to improve. We have time for Harden and MDA to reign in Westbrook a little. And we finally have EG back.

By those metrics, I’d say the trade is working just fine. Raptor numbers and +- be damned.

 

Uh... Sir, this is clutchfans.net, hahah. Anyway definitely agree, and while players sometimes shouldn't have that power, you definitely want your superstar happy. I mean if the Rockets didn't have Harden, yeah.... I'll be happy with how it's going vs lottery