In picking over the wreckage of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s season, there is plenty of potential angles to chew on. Kevin Durant played pretty poorly. Kendrick Perkins is a terrible player and should be amnestied. Sam Presti traded James Harden away prematurely. Scott Brooks couldn’t make adjustments and played Derek Fisher way too many (read: more than 0) minutes. Patrick Beverly ran into Russell Westbrook’s knee.
Of all the contributing factors to the Thunder’s demise, it’s the last one I want to look at more closely. In Game 2 of their series against the Thunder, the Rockets’ Patrick Beverly made a rash attempt at a steal, colliding into Russell Westbrook’s knee and tearing his meniscus. Ever since the Thunder haven’t looked particularly good, going 3–6 in Westbrook’s absence, a far cry from their 60–22 season record.
Westbrook is one of the league’s most divisive players, some believing he is the fifth best player in the league and others asserting that he takes too many dumb shots and should pass to Kevin Durant more. With Westbrook’s injury clearly having been a huge factor in that 3–6 record, the “Westbrook should pass the ball more” argument is under attack.
I’m sorry, Thunder fans. I hope we’ve all at least learned to quit bitching about Russell Westbrook. I fear we didn’t, but I hope we did.
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) May 16, 2013
Next time somebody complains about Russell Westbrook’s shot selection, remember: Nick Collison Iso Eurostep.
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) May 16, 2013
As far as I can tell, the extended argument is this: because the Thunder generate poorer shot attempts and aren’t as good without Russell Westbrook on the floor, he shouldn’t be criticized for the bad shots he takes. To be frank, that’s pretty stupid.
People have conflated criticism of Westbrook’s game with thinking he’s a bad player, an argument that hasn’t actually ever been made. Nobody remotely intelligent thinks Russell Westbrook is a bad player. I probably have one of the more extreme pessimistic views of Westbrook’s worth on the court, and in a long piece before the season began I wrote:
It is pretty clear that saying Russell Westbrook is the 9th best player in the league is quite an overreach; 30th seems to fit better, and I could be convinced that 50th is right.
According to Wins Produced, the all-encompassing player rating statistic that most heavily punishes volume shooters, Westbrook had a .144 WP48 this season. That isn’t superstar territory, but it is certainly better than average, which is .100.
A pessimistic analyst and an unfavorable rating system agree that Russell Westbrook is an above average player, and that’s the low end of the value spectrum. When you trade in “above average” for “Derek Fisher” of course your team is going to struggle to get good shots: Russell Westbrook is pretty good at basketball and his backup is not! Of course you’d rather have Westbrook’s shooting (not to mention his passing, rebounding and defense) than Fisher or Reggie Jackson’s.
What that doesn’t mean, however, is that Westbrook’s 44 FG% or 32 3P%—or the fact that he takes three more shots per 36 minutes than uber-efficient and deadly Kevin Durant—should be off-limits for questioning.
