Friday, March 08, 2013

On the other hand..

All the people complaining about Russell Westbrook hogging the ball or how he should've been traded over Harden also have no idea how the team works.

Russ is an elite point guard, top 5 in the league. Harden is not.

OKC doesn't have a lot of shooters, and their big man is basically a zero in the paint offensively. If they can train Ibaka to be a consistent post threat, it would go a long way to relieving some pressure. Until then, they need Westbrook to put up the volume numbers.

Westbrook needs to be fearless, and he needs to be a constant drive threat. It doesn't even matter that he takes more shots than Durant, because Durant's stats are only as good as they are because he is selective with his shots. Someone else needs to chuck the ball the rest of the time and I'd rather have it be Russ than Perkins, Ibaka or Sefolosha.

That's not to say Westbrook doesn't have problems. Sometimes his court vision narrows to a laser beam. And sometimes he tries to drive through a lane that's obviously going to collapse into a 3 on 1 or even 4 on 1 (no joke). That's not bravery anymore, that's just stupidity.

But then again, it's still not entirely his fault. Because what the hell are his teammates doing just standing around spectating?

The more fundamental problem is that Scotty Brooks's playbook is so thin that its contents can fit on a business card. Until they learn to move the ball, they are going to lose to teams that can shut down Durant/Westbrook isolations. There aren't that many that can (which is why they're doing as well as they are), but the real contenders, the teams that OKC actually need to focus on beating, can do it consistently.

Westbrook's bricks are easy to laugh at, but they're just the most obvious symptom.

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