Russell Westbrook - OKC - G

14 team 9 cat H2H. Lacking in pts and punting turnovers/fg%. Draymond/Kemba (up) Westbrook/Oladipo (down)

i'm tanking, trade westbrook (can only keep 1 more year) for embiid (8th round keeper) and a 1st round pick?

I'm punt FG/TO, and just traded George, Gobert, Lavine, and Parker for Westbrook, Dieng, and D. Booker.....did I win (up) or lose (down) this trade?

I'm pretty sure every roto league I'm in the team that drafted Westbrook is in last place

I get what he is doing is amazing, but couldn't we just have one game that isn't compromised by huge TO's, or in today's case, huge TO's AND terrible FT%?

"only 37/19 per 36, what a scrub"... And if you adjusted for pace to today's game you could probably slash that by 25% more. He wasn't some eff monster. He barely shot 50%. Oscars season was more like 25/9/10 per 36 and you could take about 20% more off of everything too. Point is Russ is killing it by any metric. Chris Smith also in that era they had limited blacks players.

GDiama I would have thought you're right about being bad defensively from the eye test, but his BPM and on/off def rating tell a very different story. We'll see if it balances out or not, but their drtg is 100.1 with him on, 108.4 with him off. That's a huge swing.

Good point, I forgot about Toronto. They definitely belong in the same tier of contenders with Boston and Atlanta. Chicago is doing surprisingly well to but I'd like to see them keep it up for another 20 games before they get legit contender status.

You'd put ATL and BOS there over TOR?

Good points about the fast pace and the 40+ min games those guys played in the different eras. Also I think you would have to factor in the level of competition. Back then you didn't have kids being groomed in basketball camps, international players, and training methods which makes RW's feat all that more incredible. As far as him screwing his team up by not playing team ball I might have a differing opinion than most. First of all, anyone outside of GSW, CLE, LAC, ATL, BOS, and SAS has like a 1% chance of winning the title. In other words, it's not gonna happen. What he's accomplishing right now makes OKC relevant and must see action. He might as well go for it this season. He's not costing his team a championship that they aren't going to win anyway and if anything his play could help attract a free agent superstar.

only 37/19 per 36, what a scrub

The thing most people and even the talking heads can't actually wrap their head around is guys like Wilt and Oscar played 44-48 minutes. When you really look at it in that context their seasons look at lot more human. Not to mention a incredible 131 pace and especially when you consider the competition. Wilts 50/25 season becomes 37/19 for example adjusted to 36 mintues

I don't say this team would be better with someone like Chris Paul at the point, but Westbrook can really do much better than this (maybe sounds crazy but i believe it 100%) even if his stats were to decline. Sometimes I think he is pushing it too much only to get the stats.

I will be the strange guy here and say that his defense is terrible, especially leaving his guys alone in order to go for the rebound. He also runs on a pace that his teammates cannot follow and makes a lot of jump shots with none to rebound. He is playing some terrific basketball from a stats perspective, but if you really look into it he shouldn't play like that. I don't say his teammates can live up to the challenge of a big playoff run, but he is not maximizing his teams' potential the way he is playing, because he is out of control half of the game.

Also, the total rebounds of RWB is different for BBM (181) and Yahoo! (179)

Split my comment because it's too long. The other thing, Westbrook's insane BPM compared to other insane usg% seasons like Kobe in 06 and AI in 02. His team really is much much much better with him on the floor and getting insane usage. He's not doing the Kobe thing of shooting 40 times per game while making his team worse. TL;DR - very impressive, will get more attention if still going in Feb, won't get as much recognition if they finish 42-40 as if they go 50-32 (for better or worse)

Also remember that for a lot of people Basketball doesn't really start till after Christmas or after NFL ends. In Feb when basketball is 70% of ESPN air time he he's still getting 30/10/11 it'll get a lot more run. The other thing working against him (and Harden), is that basically noone would consider him the best player in the league, and he'd miss some well informed people's top 5 (don't want to start war about who is top5, but LBJ, KD, Steph, Kawhi will be in most people's I'd think). A couple things I think that really are in his favor when considering his season in historical context: I can't believe people still talk about O's TD season as if LBJ/Russ/Kidd etc. wouldn't have done the same thing at that pace/mpg. It seems to me much more sacred and exceptional to people than Wilt's 50/25 season which no one ever comes remotely close to approaching, so no one really talks about it. Split my comment because too long

I was thinking about the other historic seasons we have going on as well this year and recently. Curry and AD have had near all time seasons. Now you got AD, KD, Harden and Russ all with like 30 PER seasons. Even Chris Paul is up there. Maybe it's not sustainable but it is interesting. I guess less minutes more focus and rest games, smaller more skilled teams(less bigs and D) could explain some. I tend to think it is kind of sustainable though.

Probably because a) we aren't even a quarter through the season and b) there have been other historic recent individual reg seasons (Steph last year, Harden could be top ppg and apg and be close to a trip doub himself this season). Public/media perception will also probably ultimately depend on how well OKC does this season. All that said, yeah, it's pretty unreal what he's doing...

BTW not only the minutes, but the PACE. Oscars team played at a 125 pace. Thunder play at a 99. No clue what the possession difference is but it has to be substantial. In that perspective this really is like a basketball Babe Ruth type season. People almost crapped when Kidd made a little noise but I don't think this has even got that level press.

I think the media isn't making nearly as big a deal out of the season he is having as it deserves. Forget that Oscar did it in a joke era. He also played 44 minutes a game. If he does average a triple double and in 35 minutes a game that's something no one has done. Heck just getting 10+ assist on that deadbeat shooting team is amazing.

Does anyone think he'll become the first and only player since Oscar Robinson to average a triple double for the season? Up vote for yes.

Fair enough, I just think that his fg% comes with his maturity as well and the usage rate might be the same since Oladipo is more of a ballhandler than Durant. I guess, we just have to see in the season.

I love westy and his hair-on-fire, balls-2-the-walls play style. In 2014-15, he was my first pick in my punt fg% team along with deandre, gobert, kanter, and favors. Dominated the regular season, but imploded in fantasy playoffs with westy playing hero ball and building brick upon brick houses . I love westy but I think it is bananas crazy to draft him No.1 even with KD gone....p.s. still salty about it

The ranking is purely to do with turnovers, which unless you are in 9 cat roto, you shouldn't pay attention to. In 8 cat, he is third. He could shoot better, but history shows us he struggles in that situation with his efficiency

He's always been less efficient without Durant on the floor. He shot 42.6% when Durant missed most of 2014-2015 season and last year Westbrook shot 43% without Durant on the floor. It's also fair to assume that not having Durant for an entire season will lead to an uptick in minutes and usage, which could create more fatigue and less efficiency.

The ranking and his fg% mainly. Though, he regressed at the end of the season but most of last season, he was around 47% if i remember correctly

@Donnie99 where do you think he is undervalued? 27.4/8.9/11.3/2.1 seems pretty robust or are you talking about the fact that he comes in 9th in 9cat rankings?

He's fine to take near top of h2h leagues as most of his negatives come from just fg and turnovers, so with punting he's a top 3 player. but he's going to be taken too high in roto leagues where those hits are much tougher to deal with

Is he undervalued in the projections or he is just overrated in drafts?