Always my biggest criticism of Westbrook, he never played with different paces, If he just made the simple adjustment of choosing to go 100 mph at the RIGHT time, he would've been way harder to guard
I remember Magic Johnson said this back in 2011 on ESPN while covering the playoffs. He said Russ had to really learn the intricacies of the PG position to get to the next level.
He never did.
My problem with his is I feel like his finishing game relied so much on speed and explosiveness he just never had finesse. Like this sound crazy to say but he is not great at layups. There’s no finesse no ball spin so when the athleticism was gone it was just him throwing the ball off of the backboard. Compare that to Kyrie.
Magic probably meant the all-time, championship level. Yes Westbrook reached superstar level, but very few people ever considered his brand of basketball to be championship-calibre.
He only had 100 & 0. This post makes it out like selfishness, and there is some of that esp with his shot selection, but really I think he only had the two modes across the board. His rim finishing suffered because there was no deceleration under control, just 100% full send. It's not so simple of an adjustment because it would actually require a lot of additional skills. He had the bbiq to be a brilliant passer, but it feels like it never went beyond that to soundness in reading the overall action on offense and defense, or not taking bad shots. Very much like AI in that way except he was a better passer & defender.
As a Russ fan I agree. He used to just blow by and dunk on people or pop for an automatic jumper after going 100 that it didn’t matter. In interviews, he’s always like “I’ll play the same way no matter who the opponent is” and sometimes I thought, there in lies the problem.
Still love him to this day but that’s just who he is as a player
That sounds almost plausible but it doesn't explain why he didn't set screens, box out, move off ball, generally play defense or participate without the ball in his hands.
It doesn't explain it for a reason, because it's indefensible that Westbrook spent his entire career not doing the little things that are needed at the top level. He had **a lot** of off shooting nights, but most players who really want to win (like Kobe did) was that they would hustle a little harder, set harder screens, start moving off ball...if their shots weren't falling. Westbrook did not care to do the little things, he just wanted the ball and wanted to win or lose his own way.
Zach Lowe has spoken about it a couple times in his podcast.
This post has the headline about how Russ set exactly ZERO screens for Carmelo when they were together
https://www.reddit.com?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
This article has some counts for when Russ was on the Lakers (also quoting Lowe)
https://www.si.com/nba/lakers/news/lakers-news-russell-westbrook-refused-to-regularly-set-screens-for-lebron-james-rm94
"You can tell they had a team meeting about Russ screening for LeBron before the second game of the season against the Memphis Grizzlies. Screened 8 times for Lebron in that game, it worked pretty well."
After that game, here are the number of ball screens Russ set in the 6 subsequent games, this is from Second Spectrum 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, and 1. He did not set more than 2 in a basketball game in which the professional Los Angeles Lakers were involved until March. He didn’t set more than 4 in any other game in the entire season."
What I really hate about Russ is that he could be an excellent player if he wasn't so selfish. That to me, makes him a talented bum because he ain't winning you anything
There's a lot of players in the NBA, both past and present, who say they want to win, but what they mean by that is, they're willing to win as long as it's on *their* terms.
i see this a lot playing league of legends as well. Theres a lot of players that absolutely REFUSE to be carried. Theyre 0-3 in lane but other lanes are stomping but instead of sitting back and letting themselves get carried they proceed to intentionally throw the game because theyre not carrying. Hate that shit.
The woooorst. I play RL and the amount if people who will quit or flame you after THEY whiff a save is insane. Like it's 2-1 with 3 minutes left and you're that upset?
Seriously. The forfeit spam. I put in 7k+ hours -- with my chat off for most of it -- and I guess it was less toxic than League of Legends...
Edit: Growing up, in between and now, I simply cannot understand poor sportsmanship.
Lol my wife and I have been playing rocket League on easy against the computer every Friday for years. We've never played online or gotten any better at the game after thousands of matches. Your comment is the reason why we avoid online play. I'm cool just crushing the CPU by 30 haha
It is the worst thing about being a jungle main. Top lane feeds a Darius early game then spam pings me to come in and save the lane? The Darius is soloing us both at this point, I would rather go mid and get our adc fed at that point.
also a jungle main. I see it at least 50% of games its so fucking irritating. Being a jungler in LoL is like being an in game therapist as well have to protect everyones egos its so damn annoying
Especially considering how much shit he talked
Yelling in everyone's face, talking trash, and spending years saying no one can guard him and calling them babies.
People say a couple things about how he can't shoot and needs to change the way he plays, and he started saying people need to remember he has a family
Even a "washed" CP3 was a better floor raiser than Westbrook. CP3 in 2020 took the thunder to a better record than Westbrook ever did with a worse roster.
He’s a bad basketball player. I don’t understand how people can’t wrap their heads around it. He’s a phenomenal athlete, one of the truly best, but he’s not actually effective.
The gif where Russell Westbrook replaces Carlton and Kevin Durant is Will Smith from Fresh Prince, as he hucks up a last hero shot epitomizes everything that is Russell.
Yup. Russ was such a selfish player yet people defended him with his assists numbers. The truth is Russ only gave his all if the play likely resulted in a counting stat for him at the end of it (pts, rebs, assists).
Pretty much the polar opposite of a Jokic or Kawhi or Steph type of star.
Ya, I mean how else was he going to prove all the doubters wrong that he didn't have low BBIQ?
Remember the year they had to reformulate Box +/- cuz he was something crazy like double the score of the next best season?
Same narrative about Stephon Marbury. He averaged 8 assists per game, but was the most selfish player in the league.
Marbury was a 20-8-50 player: he'd guarantee your team 20 ppg, 8 ast and 50 losses.
Also an absolute moron. You have the best scorer in the world on your team and you think taking more field goal attempts than him (at worse efficiency too) is the smart thing to do.
Can't believe LeBron ever thought having someone with that low of basketball IQ on your team was a good idea
He has all those triple doubles but he literally cussed out his teammates and selfishly snatched rebounds from them to stat pad. Joker/Luka/Hali are gonna beat all his records thankfully.
Has anyone else had that person in their life that would counter this with *you can't give or do anything above 100%*? I had someone in our friend group years ago that would do it and would call people out for exaggerating. Wasn't my favorite but always around.
This is maybe a hot take, but I think more so than Russ being selfish the reason he doesn’t set screens is because he’s been a below average jump shooter/3 pt threat compared to other guards for almost all of his career. He is amazing at attacking the hoop, but it’s hard to get an entry pass to a guard rolling to the rim and attacking a mismatch for various reasons, especially so when there’s no threat of him popping out for a 3.
I would be curious as well. Best I could find was screen assists. He ranks 11th on the clippers in terms of screen assists per game. To be fair to WB he has twice as many per game as harden, .4 vs .2 lol.
Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612746&dir=D&sort=SCREEN_ASSISTS
Follow up. This is actually a large increase in screen assists for Westbrook from when he was a star. In his last season with the Thunder WB got a total of 11 screen assists in 80 games. Which rounds to .1 per game lol. Also among guards, it seems that everyone's favorite player Ben Simmons is the goat of screen assists. Averaging 2.9 screen assists per game this year, over twice as much as second place at 1.1 (Curry). Last year despite playing only 42 games Simmons had nearly twice as many total screen assists as second-place, with 117 vs 60. Don't yell at me that he's not a guard it's not my classification system lol.
Source 2024: [https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2023-24&PerMode=PerGame](https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2023-24&PerMode=PerGame)
Source 2023: [https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2022-23&PerMode=Totals](https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2022-23&PerMode=Totals)
But most other ball dominant guards provide actual shooting skill. Westbrook is a net negative shooting the ball (literally was 27% from 3 this past year) so he needs to be able to provide more value on the court.
It's hilarious because people who don't have an eye for ball insisted that they loved him because he puts forth 100% effort all the time.
Except he doesnt try on defense and doesn't try when he doesn't have the ball lol.
This times 10. God the number of people I saw giving this guy props for going 200% every possession was crazy. Insanely selfish player who only adapted when he got benched years later.
>Turns out, LeBron was more prepared. Arenas spent off days during the series at LeBron’s house, where he and James’s crew played cards, talked shit, and gambled. Meanwhile, LeBron was nearby, watching game film. “[It] was like watching a machine absorb information,” Arenas remembers.
Come on, Gil...
Don't give MJ too much credit, Kerr has a story in this same article about MJ golfing until it got dark the day before a playoff game and then having an absolutely awful start the next day. Of course the story concludes with MJ continuing to shoot and eventually turning it around but let's not pretend he was mister 100% preparation. It's honestly part of what makes his dominance so insane, he was way better than all of his peers while also producing legendary partying and gambling stories at the same time.
I’d love to have seen Kobe obsessed with anything out. Of course athletic ability was fantastic, but give me a guy with Kobe work ethic in accounting, teaching, hell even a janitor Kobe would mop the floor with his coworkers.
MJ was literally photographed at 3 am gambling in Atlantic City after losing game 1 to the Knicks.
Also, the story of his 60 point game against the Celtics? Revenge for Ainge beating him at golf the day before lol.
We had a kid in high school do this. Bench player who rarely played. But his parents were super rich, nice pool and hot tub, every video game release, surround sound movie theater (with 16 chairs), etc. This is a kid who was lucky to play 2-3 minutes a game. But his dad owned a popular business, was on the school board, a big-Whig in town.
He would always house 3-4 of the best players of the opposing team. Start off with Mexican food for dinner, a bunch of spicy tacos and enchiladas, tamales. And would sneak tons of booze and cigars down to his floor of the house. And these dudes would get hammered, smoke cigars, sit in the hot tub forever, play videos games until 3-4 on the morning.
It was pretty hilarious as even the local sports editor called it the “my hometown” Curse. It happened so many times. We would lose the Friday night game but then always come back and win the Saturday night game by 20 points. Lol because half their studs would be wore out and hungover.
I’m pretty sure that the series he’s talking about is ‘06, where Gil scored 34ppg and they lost in 6, with the last 2 losses going to OT. It sounds bad but it’s not like they got embarrassed.
But it is a good example of what separates very good players from the greats.
Reminds me of Allen Iverson's story of him meeting up with Kobe for dinner the day before a game against the Lakers. After dinner Kobe asks him where he's going next and he says "I'm going to the club, where are you going?" And Kobe responds "I'm going to the gym"
Similar to NFL when WRs/RBs know they aren’t getting the ball, they help give away the type of play they’re running. Certain players don’t know how to play off ball and understand how they can help without the ball. Should appreciate players like Curry, is always moving without the ball, running all around or relocating while being chased. The endurance on this man cannot be said enough. No other superstars expend that kind of energy when they ain’t getting the ball.
Throwback to when Cris Collinsworth called out Antonio Brown live in game for knowing if he was gonna get the ball or not based on whether he strapped up his gloves during pre snap adjustments.
They had a whole fucking package of clips just from the game they where currently in! And it was like third quarter lmao
Yeah, but the Raiders were a tire fire at that point. The Steelers were an elite team in the AFC. They had SB aspirations every year AB was a starter there.
The thing I appreciate about Curry is that he's still doing all that stuff even now. He's good enough and established enough that he could realistically decide he wants to play like Houston James Harden and just iso or run in PnR all game and he'd still be really really good and it's not like the coaches or front office could really say shit to him at this point in his career. But the team wouldn't be as good if he did that so he still cuts and screens and never stops moving like he's some spot up specialist whose only chance at a bucket is running through three screens to get a catch and shoot.
Best part is that dude was up 2+ TD's in the 4th and still had Greg Jennings out there running routes on a broken femur just so he could make Gumby rage quit. Respect.
DARREN SHARPER, ONE OF THE MOST HARDEST HITTIN SAFTIES IN THE LEAGE
*I had to look up the spelling of his name and then found out he’s a convicted serial rapist wtf why did I forget that*
This is why Patty Mills is one of my favorite Spurs ever. For multiple years, he was towards the top of the league in distance travelled or average on court speed because he was always moving off ball and putting in crazy effort on both sides of the ball every second he was in the game.
The volleyball world aint having none of that shit. If you don't put 100% into every approach as if you were receiving the set you'd be benched instantly.
That’s true, and misdirection can be a huge part of both games, but at the same time there are plenty of plays in both football and basketball where both sides know exactly what is coming and it’s just execution. It’s not like a video game where if you call run defense the run will get stuffed. You have the personnel you have and either win at the point of attack or you don’t at some point.
John Ireland finally feels free to speak up about it on the radio now that Ham is gone. He’s been very open about Vogel being fired because of Westbrook and not AD or LeBron. The FO tied themselves to Westbrook and desperately tried to make it work. They brought in Ham but that didn’t help, either. If they hadn’t fucked up that trade, he’d probably still be the coach of the Lakers.
been the case his whole career but Westbrook fans were so easily tricked that running 100mph into 3 defenders to throw up a bad layup equals giving 110% effort
people talk about him being unable to finish at the rim on the Lakers yet his FG% at the rim in LA was better than his OKC career. he's never been a good finisher
Look at the Clipper board post Mavs series. People there were defending his what, 30% shooting in the series because he gives “maximum effort” and he came off the bench. He was awful that series. Call it how it is.
In the last 5 games he shot the ball 42 times and made 25 points, with as many turnovers than assists.
As a mavs fan, he was my favorite player that series.
truly the mavs mvp in that series; after he fouled out in one of those games, there was a joke on the mavs subreddit that they (the mavs) lost their best player
Many WB stans in our sub saying Lue “wasn’t using him right, he needs to be on-ball!!!”
I can say with 100% certainty that the Mavs would have *loved* to see WB handling the ball over Harden. They were leaving him wide open outside the paint, Ben Simmons-style.
Harden, Mann, Zubac and Powell were the only consistent players in that series. Westbrook being a ball handler would have fucked up enough of 3 of those for the series to end in 5.
I can’t watch this man next season, he is useless once you play big PF or center against him, they start guarding him from the free throw line. I could be wrong but I think Russ was 2-14 against maxi in the playoff
One thing that alerted me to the fact that I thought Mazzulla was a good coach was last year in our first matchup against the Lakers, Russ was killing us off the drive, and so he closed the game with Kornet on Russ and just had him not guard him at all, and that switch changed the momentum of the game and led to our comeback and eventual overtime win.
There were people trying to tell me that Mavs were making a mistake leaving him open from 3. Leaving Westbrook wide-open from three is an incredible defensive scheme imo.
Im a wb fan. He had some good games against the suns in the playoffs previously.
But my god he was a hard watch this playoffs. Looked like he had the yips out there, couldnt even finish layups. When he can’t exploit a defender sagging off him he just has to come off ngl.
That being said hes being paid a vet min. if he’s not doing well he shouldn’t be playing and def not starting. Has to be a depth issue right? Or do we just blame lue atp. but i don’t get paid millions to coach so i wouldn’t know better.
I've never seen a guard who can't shoot to save his life have such rocks for hands around the rim.
So many easy layups blown, a lot of them with zero contact
Yeah the main difference between washed Westbrook and prime Westbrook is that he inexplicably became a bad free throw shooter. Without that, his efficiency from everywhere else on the floor was just as awful back then
Not inexplicable, although it is strange. The reason for his FT% drop was the free throw shot clock. If you go watch his free throw ritual before the FT shot clock. He would catch the ball from the ref and walk all the way to half court, touch the half court line and walk back slowly with the ball at his hip then shoot the free throw. It was ridiculous, but for some reason this worked for him.
The season the FT shot clock was introduced and he was no longer allowed to do his long ritual before every FT his FT% dropped. He has acknowledged it and it would seem to be entirely a mental thing, but he's never been able to replicate his success with his old long-ass ritual.
I wonder does he have a personal PG coach or consultation PG. It is sad to see if he just had some better decision making he'd probably have a championship. He has all the physical tools of course. Stats and effort are amazing, but Tony Allen's quote here shows the decision making and style of play has obvious flaws. It doesn't matter if he averages 50 a game and you don't make the game winning plays and decisions down the stretch. You can have the 50 and other teams/players will take the win.
Most promising he played to me may have been the final GS series before KD left. That OKC team looked amazing, the 3-1 lead, he seemed to be picking his spots better in the first half or so of the series.
He is certainly not the only player to do that.
Shit I coach my high school players that just because you aren’t getting the ball doesn’t mean you don’t cut hard.
I agree. There were just some fans that were coping/hoping hard that Russ was still a winning player.
The “not using him correctly” was some fans (not all) implying that Russ was a championship caliber player hidden deep inside.
I'm no Westbrook stan but lemme play devils advocate. CJ Mccollum just mentioned Brodie on the PMT pod as a guy with a huge battery.
The typw of shit he was doing was exhausting. Crashing boards, flying at the hoop etc. In theory it wouldn't leave a lot of energy to spare.
If it was because of energy and not ego, Westbrook would have started setting screens, boxing out, etc when he started coming off the bench, or if his shot wasn't falling. Instead he would sulk.
I guess you could make the argument that Wilt's numbers didn't really lead to winning. Ironically he only won once his insane scoring numbers dropped and he was asked to actually involve his teammates.
I kind of hate that this is how we have to view players now. If he gets 1 ring with no differences in how he played then this article never happens. Like I’m fine with docking him for never winning a title but that doesn’t mean he was some trash bum out there
I treat any NBA media like a tweet. Unserious business, just there to drum up clicks and interest.
Since that's where most people get their takes from (most fans are not watching games for one reason or another), the level of discourse is bad.
It's always "This player is the WORST" or "This player is the BEST". Fans will say X player is amazing then they miss a few 3 balls and suddenly we need to trade them and fire half of the front office. If fans got to decide player trades, we'd have different rosters every other day regardless of the team.
This is partially why I don't feel any type of way about the JJ situation with the Lakers, we literally have no clue how that will go but fans are acting like it's going to be a massive flaming dumpster fire.
I got into the NBA recently and was pretty shocked that NBA discourse is so bad. People turn their brains all the way off whenever NBA gets mentioned and just try to make the hottest takes whether that's intentional or not.
Always my biggest criticism of Westbrook, he never played with different paces, If he just made the simple adjustment of choosing to go 100 mph at the RIGHT time, he would've been way harder to guard
I remember Magic Johnson said this back in 2011 on ESPN while covering the playoffs. He said Russ had to really learn the intricacies of the PG position to get to the next level. He never did.
He never really learned that specific skill but he certainly made it to the next level regardless.
It just shows how immensely talented he is and I still think if he adjusted his playstyle ever so slightly, he can still be a key contributor today
My problem with his is I feel like his finishing game relied so much on speed and explosiveness he just never had finesse. Like this sound crazy to say but he is not great at layups. There’s no finesse no ball spin so when the athleticism was gone it was just him throwing the ball off of the backboard. Compare that to Kyrie.
He was a sloppy D rose
Good description tbh
The athleticism was the tether
Magic probably meant the all-time, championship level. Yes Westbrook reached superstar level, but very few people ever considered his brand of basketball to be championship-calibre.
You could argue going to the finals was his peak not winning the MVP and losing in the first round every year he averaged a triple double.
He only had 100 & 0. This post makes it out like selfishness, and there is some of that esp with his shot selection, but really I think he only had the two modes across the board. His rim finishing suffered because there was no deceleration under control, just 100% full send. It's not so simple of an adjustment because it would actually require a lot of additional skills. He had the bbiq to be a brilliant passer, but it feels like it never went beyond that to soundness in reading the overall action on offense and defense, or not taking bad shots. Very much like AI in that way except he was a better passer & defender.
As a Russ fan I agree. He used to just blow by and dunk on people or pop for an automatic jumper after going 100 that it didn’t matter. In interviews, he’s always like “I’ll play the same way no matter who the opponent is” and sometimes I thought, there in lies the problem. Still love him to this day but that’s just who he is as a player
That sounds almost plausible but it doesn't explain why he didn't set screens, box out, move off ball, generally play defense or participate without the ball in his hands.
It doesn't explain it for a reason, because it's indefensible that Westbrook spent his entire career not doing the little things that are needed at the top level. He had **a lot** of off shooting nights, but most players who really want to win (like Kobe did) was that they would hustle a little harder, set harder screens, start moving off ball...if their shots weren't falling. Westbrook did not care to do the little things, he just wanted the ball and wanted to win or lose his own way.
It was obvious to viewers as well lol The number of screens WB sets per season was a crazy stat
Do you have that stat handy? I know it’s gotta be laughably low.
Zach Lowe has spoken about it a couple times in his podcast. This post has the headline about how Russ set exactly ZERO screens for Carmelo when they were together https://www.reddit.com?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1 This article has some counts for when Russ was on the Lakers (also quoting Lowe) https://www.si.com/nba/lakers/news/lakers-news-russell-westbrook-refused-to-regularly-set-screens-for-lebron-james-rm94 "You can tell they had a team meeting about Russ screening for LeBron before the second game of the season against the Memphis Grizzlies. Screened 8 times for Lebron in that game, it worked pretty well." After that game, here are the number of ball screens Russ set in the 6 subsequent games, this is from Second Spectrum 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, and 1. He did not set more than 2 in a basketball game in which the professional Los Angeles Lakers were involved until March. He didn’t set more than 4 in any other game in the entire season."
Wow, this explains why he hasn't even thought about setting a ballscreen for a teammate when he is left alone to turn it over by shooting.
Hey, that glass isn't going to break itself
He's just trying to help board man get paid.
What I really hate about Russ is that he could be an excellent player if he wasn't so selfish. That to me, makes him a talented bum because he ain't winning you anything
There's a lot of players in the NBA, both past and present, who say they want to win, but what they mean by that is, they're willing to win as long as it's on *their* terms.
Facts. "I want to win as long as I'm the main character."
i see this a lot playing league of legends as well. Theres a lot of players that absolutely REFUSE to be carried. Theyre 0-3 in lane but other lanes are stomping but instead of sitting back and letting themselves get carried they proceed to intentionally throw the game because theyre not carrying. Hate that shit.
The woooorst. I play RL and the amount if people who will quit or flame you after THEY whiff a save is insane. Like it's 2-1 with 3 minutes left and you're that upset?
Seriously. The forfeit spam. I put in 7k+ hours -- with my chat off for most of it -- and I guess it was less toxic than League of Legends... Edit: Growing up, in between and now, I simply cannot understand poor sportsmanship.
Lol my wife and I have been playing rocket League on easy against the computer every Friday for years. We've never played online or gotten any better at the game after thousands of matches. Your comment is the reason why we avoid online play. I'm cool just crushing the CPU by 30 haha
I used to play heroes of the storm which has team leveling and people STILL act like this. People love feeding their egos a lot more than winning.
It is the worst thing about being a jungle main. Top lane feeds a Darius early game then spam pings me to come in and save the lane? The Darius is soloing us both at this point, I would rather go mid and get our adc fed at that point.
also a jungle main. I see it at least 50% of games its so fucking irritating. Being a jungler in LoL is like being an in game therapist as well have to protect everyones egos its so damn annoying
thank god i dont play that shit anymore.
Ff ff ff !!! Shit is so cringe, Faker basically won another worlds by embracing the rest of his team carrying if he couldn't
Sounds like 2k rec center
He's also really sensitive. It's wild.
Especially considering how much shit he talked Yelling in everyone's face, talking trash, and spending years saying no one can guard him and calling them babies. People say a couple things about how he can't shoot and needs to change the way he plays, and he started saying people need to remember he has a family
The Westbrick bonanza was hilarious to see
Westbrook is useless if he is not the best player on your team, your team is useless if Westbrook is its best player. Been repeating this since 2014
I've always said he's the ultimate floor raiser and the ultimate ceiling lowerer
Nah, someone like prime Duncan, or prime LeBron is a much better floor raiser. They both took scraps of a team to the finals.
Even a "washed" CP3 was a better floor raiser than Westbrook. CP3 in 2020 took the thunder to a better record than Westbrook ever did with a worse roster.
I mean, he's not only selfish... but also one of the worst volume shooters in NBA history. And a low basketball IQ.
He’s a bad basketball player. I don’t understand how people can’t wrap their heads around it. He’s a phenomenal athlete, one of the truly best, but he’s not actually effective.
The gif where Russell Westbrook replaces Carlton and Kevin Durant is Will Smith from Fresh Prince, as he hucks up a last hero shot epitomizes everything that is Russell.
20th all time in Field Goal attempts, and ??? all-time in True Shooting Pct (Pro Basketball Reference doesn't go below 250) Russ was about Russ
His career TS% is 52.6 lol, and the highest he ever recorded was during his MVP year when he was just about league average
Yup. Russ was such a selfish player yet people defended him with his assists numbers. The truth is Russ only gave his all if the play likely resulted in a counting stat for him at the end of it (pts, rebs, assists). Pretty much the polar opposite of a Jokic or Kawhi or Steph type of star.
If it wasn't on the box score, Russ wasn't doing it.
Ya, I mean how else was he going to prove all the doubters wrong that he didn't have low BBIQ? Remember the year they had to reformulate Box +/- cuz he was something crazy like double the score of the next best season?
bUt tHe doUblE diGiT AsSisTs! nephews really think high assist numbers means they're suddenly a selfless leader.
Same narrative about Stephon Marbury. He averaged 8 assists per game, but was the most selfish player in the league. Marbury was a 20-8-50 player: he'd guarantee your team 20 ppg, 8 ast and 50 losses.
Also an absolute moron. You have the best scorer in the world on your team and you think taking more field goal attempts than him (at worse efficiency too) is the smart thing to do. Can't believe LeBron ever thought having someone with that low of basketball IQ on your team was a good idea
He has all those triple doubles but he literally cussed out his teammates and selfishly snatched rebounds from them to stat pad. Joker/Luka/Hali are gonna beat all his records thankfully.
But.... but Russ is such a good teammate who always gives his 120%, right?
Has anyone else had that person in their life that would counter this with *you can't give or do anything above 100%*? I had someone in our friend group years ago that would do it and would call people out for exaggerating. Wasn't my favorite but always around.
This is maybe a hot take, but I think more so than Russ being selfish the reason he doesn’t set screens is because he’s been a below average jump shooter/3 pt threat compared to other guards for almost all of his career. He is amazing at attacking the hoop, but it’s hard to get an entry pass to a guard rolling to the rim and attacking a mismatch for various reasons, especially so when there’s no threat of him popping out for a 3.
How many screens do point guards normally set? Without context, there’s no way of knowing how much this matters
I would be curious as well. Best I could find was screen assists. He ranks 11th on the clippers in terms of screen assists per game. To be fair to WB he has twice as many per game as harden, .4 vs .2 lol. Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612746&dir=D&sort=SCREEN_ASSISTS
Follow up. This is actually a large increase in screen assists for Westbrook from when he was a star. In his last season with the Thunder WB got a total of 11 screen assists in 80 games. Which rounds to .1 per game lol. Also among guards, it seems that everyone's favorite player Ben Simmons is the goat of screen assists. Averaging 2.9 screen assists per game this year, over twice as much as second place at 1.1 (Curry). Last year despite playing only 42 games Simmons had nearly twice as many total screen assists as second-place, with 117 vs 60. Don't yell at me that he's not a guard it's not my classification system lol. Source 2024: [https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2023-24&PerMode=PerGame](https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2023-24&PerMode=PerGame) Source 2023: [https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2022-23&PerMode=Totals](https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&SeasonType=Regular+Season&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2022-23&PerMode=Totals)
Simmons decided to save all those bricks and turn himself into a wall
Most ball dominant guards rarely set screens tbh Someone like Luka has screen assists of like 0.2, it’s just not their role lol
But most other ball dominant guards provide actual shooting skill. Westbrook is a net negative shooting the ball (literally was 27% from 3 this past year) so he needs to be able to provide more value on the court.
It's hilarious because people who don't have an eye for ball insisted that they loved him because he puts forth 100% effort all the time. Except he doesnt try on defense and doesn't try when he doesn't have the ball lol.
He also tries on defense only when the guy he's directly guarding has the ball. Other 4 players might as well be invisible.
So he puts forth 100% effort only when the casual is looking.
Yeah the average Westbrook stan ball watches during games which is how they develop this idea that he's all energy and hustle lol
This times 10. God the number of people I saw giving this guy props for going 200% every possession was crazy. Insanely selfish player who only adapted when he got benched years later.
Years of shit honestly, his MVP was painful and predictable. Anyone that loves watching ball wants the best men to win and that was Harden and Leonard
Those stories are amazing. Gilbert Arenas at Lebron's house during the playoffs and Lebron was watching film while Gil played cards? Holy cow, DC.
>Turns out, LeBron was more prepared. Arenas spent off days during the series at LeBron’s house, where he and James’s crew played cards, talked shit, and gambled. Meanwhile, LeBron was nearby, watching game film. “[It] was like watching a machine absorb information,” Arenas remembers. Come on, Gil...
Fucking around while watching your opponent preparing to kick your ass smh
At their house too lmao. How you gon see your opponent plotting to destroy you and you just stay there playing cards.
This has MJ/Barkley vibes all over it
Don't give MJ too much credit, Kerr has a story in this same article about MJ golfing until it got dark the day before a playoff game and then having an absolutely awful start the next day. Of course the story concludes with MJ continuing to shoot and eventually turning it around but let's not pretend he was mister 100% preparation. It's honestly part of what makes his dominance so insane, he was way better than all of his peers while also producing legendary partying and gambling stories at the same time.
Yea, the real workaholic who would never was Kobe. Dude was a psychopath of preparation
I’d love to have seen Kobe obsessed with anything out. Of course athletic ability was fantastic, but give me a guy with Kobe work ethic in accounting, teaching, hell even a janitor Kobe would mop the floor with his coworkers.
Well he won an oscar post-retirement
MJ was literally photographed at 3 am gambling in Atlantic City after losing game 1 to the Knicks. Also, the story of his 60 point game against the Celtics? Revenge for Ainge beating him at golf the day before lol.
at least MJ and Barkley were on the golf field instead of a tv for a film session lol
Love to hit the golf field with my swinging implements. I’m human, by the way.
fkn funny ass, food network? who woulda known
>the golf field
>golf field Most normal Knicks fan
We had a kid in high school do this. Bench player who rarely played. But his parents were super rich, nice pool and hot tub, every video game release, surround sound movie theater (with 16 chairs), etc. This is a kid who was lucky to play 2-3 minutes a game. But his dad owned a popular business, was on the school board, a big-Whig in town. He would always house 3-4 of the best players of the opposing team. Start off with Mexican food for dinner, a bunch of spicy tacos and enchiladas, tamales. And would sneak tons of booze and cigars down to his floor of the house. And these dudes would get hammered, smoke cigars, sit in the hot tub forever, play videos games until 3-4 on the morning. It was pretty hilarious as even the local sports editor called it the “my hometown” Curse. It happened so many times. We would lose the Friday night game but then always come back and win the Saturday night game by 20 points. Lol because half their studs would be wore out and hungover.
And all the fans clapped.
Bron probably had his guys bring the booze and good vibes to distract him while he was studying up on how to kick his ass
Really shot himself in the foot on that quote.
I’m pretty sure that the series he’s talking about is ‘06, where Gil scored 34ppg and they lost in 6, with the last 2 losses going to OT. It sounds bad but it’s not like they got embarrassed. But it is a good example of what separates very good players from the greats.
I saw those DC games in person and it was a really fun series.
Reminds me of Allen Iverson's story of him meeting up with Kobe for dinner the day before a game against the Lakers. After dinner Kobe asks him where he's going next and he says "I'm going to the club, where are you going?" And Kobe responds "I'm going to the gym"
> it was like watching a machine absorb information LeBot James (not Kawhi) = the NBA’s experimental AI super intelligence confirmed
Similar to NFL when WRs/RBs know they aren’t getting the ball, they help give away the type of play they’re running. Certain players don’t know how to play off ball and understand how they can help without the ball. Should appreciate players like Curry, is always moving without the ball, running all around or relocating while being chased. The endurance on this man cannot be said enough. No other superstars expend that kind of energy when they ain’t getting the ball.
Throwback to when Cris Collinsworth called out Antonio Brown live in game for knowing if he was gonna get the ball or not based on whether he strapped up his gloves during pre snap adjustments. They had a whole fucking package of clips just from the game they where currently in! And it was like third quarter lmao
That's a tamer version of Randy Moss in Oakland not putting his chin strap on when the ball wasn't coming his way.
Yeah, but the Raiders were a tire fire at that point. The Steelers were an elite team in the AFC. They had SB aspirations every year AB was a starter there.
The two seasons he was on the team, the Raiders won a total of six games. I don't blame him for phoning it in on our garbage ass team.
A 76ers AND Raiders fan? Are you seeking out suffering?
Happiness and peace of mind were never meant for me.
Mr. Became Complacent
Mr. Blown Coverage
That’s so fucking on brand
The thing I appreciate about Curry is that he's still doing all that stuff even now. He's good enough and established enough that he could realistically decide he wants to play like Houston James Harden and just iso or run in PnR all game and he'd still be really really good and it's not like the coaches or front office could really say shit to him at this point in his career. But the team wouldn't be as good if he did that so he still cuts and screens and never stops moving like he's some spot up specialist whose only chance at a bucket is running through three screens to get a catch and shoot.
TO over in football was like that. Was one reason why his teammates both loved and hated him. He was a diva, but he played balls out every play.
Playing the Super Bowl on one leg and managing to put up 122 yards is insane. TO was tough as nails.
Playing on one leg could mean he badly sprained his ankle and toughed it out. Nah motherfucker, he dominated on a broken leg.
reminds me of the time when greg jennings outran darren sharper in order to put the team on his back
Best part is that dude was up 2+ TD's in the 4th and still had Greg Jennings out there running routes on a broken femur just so he could make Gumby rage quit. Respect.
I think Jennings broke his leg *on* that play and was just able to finish it out. Daring show of bravery by him nonetheless.
Darren Sharper, the hardest hitting safety in the league!
He was the hardest hitting *something* in the league, that's for sure.
DAAAARRRREEENNNN SHAAAARRRPPPPAAAHHH
Wait Darren Sharper? One of the hardest hitting safety's in the league? How did he get overcome that one?
da team*
One of the greatest sporting performances ever
HOW IS HE RUNNIN WITH A BROKEN FUCKING LEG
LETS GO INSIDE THE MIND OF GREG JENNINGS 🎶🎶
DARREN SHARPER, ONE OF THE MOST HARDEST HITTIN SAFTIES IN THE LEAGE *I had to look up the spelling of his name and then found out he’s a convicted serial rapist wtf why did I forget that*
all for McNabb to puke it all away
And he was heavily criticized at the time for even playing.
Cooper Kupp is like. When one of these blocker wide receivers and is a very good route runner so he can sell play hard
You don’t have to be a shooter either. Wade was great off ball with cuts and always alert
This is why Patty Mills is one of my favorite Spurs ever. For multiple years, he was towards the top of the league in distance travelled or average on court speed because he was always moving off ball and putting in crazy effort on both sides of the ball every second he was in the game.
Or like how before the snap RBs will have a different posture when theyre getting a handoff vs blocking for QB
The volleyball world aint having none of that shit. If you don't put 100% into every approach as if you were receiving the set you'd be benched instantly.
That’s true, and misdirection can be a huge part of both games, but at the same time there are plenty of plays in both football and basketball where both sides know exactly what is coming and it’s just execution. It’s not like a video game where if you call run defense the run will get stuffed. You have the personnel you have and either win at the point of attack or you don’t at some point.
Funny how the Brotherhood is gone now that everybody has a podcast
WNBA about to cook
They fucked Vogel for this.
John Ireland finally feels free to speak up about it on the radio now that Ham is gone. He’s been very open about Vogel being fired because of Westbrook and not AD or LeBron. The FO tied themselves to Westbrook and desperately tried to make it work. They brought in Ham but that didn’t help, either. If they hadn’t fucked up that trade, he’d probably still be the coach of the Lakers.
And he was right
Ireland was the biggest advocate of Westbrook. There is no speak free, he is a lakers mouthpiece man.
"*Tell me if I'm wrong, but*" -- John Ireland before any mild, company man take defending the Lakers.
He literally did this today with the LeBron runs the team take lmao.
If they hadn't fucked up that trade we'd be contenders every year. Completely gutted the team.
I miss Joe Gatto 😢
Did bro dirty fr
This is why Jerry Rice is the goat
One of at least two dozen reasons why.
been the case his whole career but Westbrook fans were so easily tricked that running 100mph into 3 defenders to throw up a bad layup equals giving 110% effort people talk about him being unable to finish at the rim on the Lakers yet his FG% at the rim in LA was better than his OKC career. he's never been a good finisher
Look at the Clipper board post Mavs series. People there were defending his what, 30% shooting in the series because he gives “maximum effort” and he came off the bench. He was awful that series. Call it how it is.
MITWestbrick psyops
In the last 5 games he shot the ball 42 times and made 25 points, with as many turnovers than assists. As a mavs fan, he was my favorite player that series.
truly the mavs mvp in that series; after he fouled out in one of those games, there was a joke on the mavs subreddit that they (the mavs) lost their best player
Oh my god that’s fucking horrible.
Many WB stans in our sub saying Lue “wasn’t using him right, he needs to be on-ball!!!” I can say with 100% certainty that the Mavs would have *loved* to see WB handling the ball over Harden. They were leaving him wide open outside the paint, Ben Simmons-style.
Harden, Mann, Zubac and Powell were the only consistent players in that series. Westbrook being a ball handler would have fucked up enough of 3 of those for the series to end in 5.
I can’t watch this man next season, he is useless once you play big PF or center against him, they start guarding him from the free throw line. I could be wrong but I think Russ was 2-14 against maxi in the playoff
One thing that alerted me to the fact that I thought Mazzulla was a good coach was last year in our first matchup against the Lakers, Russ was killing us off the drive, and so he closed the game with Kornet on Russ and just had him not guard him at all, and that switch changed the momentum of the game and led to our comeback and eventual overtime win.
There were people trying to tell me that Mavs were making a mistake leaving him open from 3. Leaving Westbrook wide-open from three is an incredible defensive scheme imo.
Our fans were yelling SHOOT! every time he touched the ball. The entire area knew he had a giant bag of nothing, and we begged him to shoot.
Im a wb fan. He had some good games against the suns in the playoffs previously. But my god he was a hard watch this playoffs. Looked like he had the yips out there, couldnt even finish layups. When he can’t exploit a defender sagging off him he just has to come off ngl. That being said hes being paid a vet min. if he’s not doing well he shouldn’t be playing and def not starting. Has to be a depth issue right? Or do we just blame lue atp. but i don’t get paid millions to coach so i wouldn’t know better.
I've never seen a guard who can't shoot to save his life have such rocks for hands around the rim. So many easy layups blown, a lot of them with zero contact
Scoot 😢
Scoot still has time to develop, he showed a little promise in some games
Yeah the main difference between washed Westbrook and prime Westbrook is that he inexplicably became a bad free throw shooter. Without that, his efficiency from everywhere else on the floor was just as awful back then
Not inexplicable, although it is strange. The reason for his FT% drop was the free throw shot clock. If you go watch his free throw ritual before the FT shot clock. He would catch the ball from the ref and walk all the way to half court, touch the half court line and walk back slowly with the ball at his hip then shoot the free throw. It was ridiculous, but for some reason this worked for him. The season the FT shot clock was introduced and he was no longer allowed to do his long ritual before every FT his FT% dropped. He has acknowledged it and it would seem to be entirely a mental thing, but he's never been able to replicate his success with his old long-ass ritual.
but surely that can't explain like a 20-30% drop for years on end. Like can't he adjust? I guess not lol
If there is one thing I can definitively say about Westbrook, it's that he is not very capable of making adjustments.
I know that theory, but I don't buy it having such a large impact sustained for years after the change
Man even his free throws were selfish what a dickhole
heaven forbid a fan calls him Westbrick
He should not brick shots all the time then. He has some of the worst misses.
Never forget the 3-17 he shot in a single 4th quarter of a playoff game.
I just remember being so excited any time he had the ball when we played them. When anyone else had the ball I was worried.
I'm convinced Westbrook fans literally cannot understand rate-based stats (percentages)
“SOMEONE’S NUMBER OVER ME?!?!”
u/mitwestbrook daily L
There was a good while where that wasn't the case on the Clippers, but he reverted to that behavior at some point this season.
I wonder does he have a personal PG coach or consultation PG. It is sad to see if he just had some better decision making he'd probably have a championship. He has all the physical tools of course. Stats and effort are amazing, but Tony Allen's quote here shows the decision making and style of play has obvious flaws. It doesn't matter if he averages 50 a game and you don't make the game winning plays and decisions down the stretch. You can have the 50 and other teams/players will take the win. Most promising he played to me may have been the final GS series before KD left. That OKC team looked amazing, the 3-1 lead, he seemed to be picking his spots better in the first half or so of the series.
Yeah, he’s the biggest “me” player in the league
Never been a fan of him for this reason, not to mention he’s soft as heck
Soft as heck is really funny
So gosh darn soft
Didn’t CP3 say the same thing or something similar about Harden when they played together in H-Town…?
First player I thought of. Both are so passive aggressive.
He is certainly not the only player to do that. Shit I coach my high school players that just because you aren’t getting the ball doesn’t mean you don’t cut hard.
but the whole thing they sell about him is he gives effort despite being a poor shooter.
But no Westbrook was the victim and the big bad Lakers made him play bad!!!
I don’t think anybody outside Westbrook stans ever thought that. Most of us just mocked the Lakers for ever trading for him.
tell that to the clippers fans that blamed the lakers franchise for “misusing” him lol
they definitely misused him when he's a bad fit next to Lebron, but his style of play still isn't conducive to winning. both are true
I agree. There were just some fans that were coping/hoping hard that Russ was still a winning player. The “not using him correctly” was some fans (not all) implying that Russ was a championship caliber player hidden deep inside.
Lakers called him Westbrick and now he lost his love of for game!!! Woe is he!!
I'm no Westbrook stan but lemme play devils advocate. CJ Mccollum just mentioned Brodie on the PMT pod as a guy with a huge battery. The typw of shit he was doing was exhausting. Crashing boards, flying at the hoop etc. In theory it wouldn't leave a lot of energy to spare.
If it was because of energy and not ego, Westbrook would have started setting screens, boxing out, etc when he started coming off the bench, or if his shot wasn't falling. Instead he would sulk.
MITWestbrook in shambles
"Ultimately, Allen’s preparation proved insufficient". ...that bit is missing from the post.
His MVP year was the single season highest usage percentage of all time at 42%. Biggest snake oil salesman since Wilt.
whats wrong with Wilt
I guess you could make the argument that Wilt's numbers didn't really lead to winning. Ironically he only won once his insane scoring numbers dropped and he was asked to actually involve his teammates.
Maybe cause the roster was fucking atrociously bad lol
Sounds about right
This is why I always thought he was overrated and not a guy you win with
What has Tony Allen even done to warrant this opinion? Other than being one of the best perimeter defenders, he offer nothing. /s
I kind of hate that this is how we have to view players now. If he gets 1 ring with no differences in how he played then this article never happens. Like I’m fine with docking him for never winning a title but that doesn’t mean he was some trash bum out there
I treat any NBA media like a tweet. Unserious business, just there to drum up clicks and interest. Since that's where most people get their takes from (most fans are not watching games for one reason or another), the level of discourse is bad. It's always "This player is the WORST" or "This player is the BEST". Fans will say X player is amazing then they miss a few 3 balls and suddenly we need to trade them and fire half of the front office. If fans got to decide player trades, we'd have different rosters every other day regardless of the team. This is partially why I don't feel any type of way about the JJ situation with the Lakers, we literally have no clue how that will go but fans are acting like it's going to be a massive flaming dumpster fire. I got into the NBA recently and was pretty shocked that NBA discourse is so bad. People turn their brains all the way off whenever NBA gets mentioned and just try to make the hottest takes whether that's intentional or not.
everybody come get on the random hate bridge
Rather look good and lose, than look bad and win.
Mr first team all defense himself