2016-17 NBA Season

[BW23]

And most that whine about parity are fans of Whiny 23 and his Cavs team.

[themiddle54]

Dubs-OKC this past weekend as a metaphor for why KD left and why I don't particularly care for Westbrook as a player.

Westbrook has an insane stat line--47/8/11--but turns the ball over 11 times and shoots 3-10 from three-point land in a lopsided loss. Oladipo is the only other Thunder player to take double-digit FGA. If you're gambling on DraftKings daily fantasy, boy are you glad you had Westbrook.

KD scores less, but still has as solid game and two of his teammates--Klay and Steph--take 12 and 19 FGA respectively, the team has 28 total assists and they easily blow out the Thunder. If you're gambling on outcomes, or are emotionally invested in who wins, boy are you glad you have Durant.

Westbrook is, to me, the new Kobe. But old Kobe, the Kobe that didn't want to share the ball with Randle or Young or the other kids on his team last year. I don't blame KD for leaving and I would not blame any FA in his prime for refusing to go to OKC to play with him. I would also not fault any GM of a team with Championship aspirations for passing on acquiring him, even at low cost. Westbrook...
--Jumps over Adams and (when he was active) Kanter even when no opponents are under the glass to grab defensive boards and pad his stat line when he could instead be on the wing waiting for an outlet pass to get the offensive possession moving.
--Chucks it. A ton. Like at a Constanza pace. Westbrook has 240 more FGA than the #2 player in the league (Boogie) and Westbrook's's #12 in 3PA even though his .338 from that distance is the lowest of any player in the top 34 for 3PA. He's taking 3PA at the same rate as Beal (.390) and Swaggy P (.418) and CJ (.412) and Reddick (.419) despite shooting between 52 and 81 points worse from that range.
--Will pass over the chance to hit Oladipo or Sabonis on the wing, wide open, so he can crash the lane or take one of those low-return threes.
--Is on pace for 1960 or so FGA this year. He'll land around 33rd all-time in single season shot attempts. But his true shooting % is only .544. When Jordan had about that many shot attempts in 1990 his TS% was .604. In 1972 in the ABA Rick Berry took 1269 FGA (in two more games than Westbrook will play) and had a .550 TS%. His team finished four games over .500 and outscored opponents by only 0.4 PPG. Inefficient. There's no reason for that many shots if you're not running at a .590 or better TS%. That '90 Bulls team that Jordan took a lot of shots on went 55-27. Unlike Jordan's Bulls, and like Barry's NY team, the Thunder as a team suffers from all those shots, and would be better if the ball moved around.
--Is trying far too hard and forcing far too much. He's 2nd to Harden in TO (and Harden is on a crazy TO pace*), but the #3 player in TO is John Wall and Wall has nearly 100 fewer TO than Russ. This year Russ became the first player to have two games in which he had a triple-double, and then also had double-digit turnovers. The 10 turnovers basically wipe out a quarter of the value of the triple-double, and we're losing a lot of Russ's big-picture value when we celebrate all the triple-doubles without lamenting the TO that temper his value.

OKC is going to be an easy first-round out in the playoffs, and it's going to be because of one lone superstar chucking it at a high rate and turning the ball over at a pace that would shatter a record if not for another mediocre team with another guy doing pretty much the same thing this year.** Russ is antithetical to winning. Found somewhere in the narrative of "They almost knocked out the Dubs last year and had them down 3-1" has to be: "Hey, Maybe Westbrook should not have taken 28, 27, 21 shots in those last three games (including 5-19 on 3PA in those three games)."

*Harden set the league record for TO last year with 370. He has 334 now and 25 games to play. At his current pace (5.9/game) Harden will end up with 483 TO, breaking his record from last year by a whopping 30.5%. Westbrook is on pace to have 451 TO at his 5.5/game pace. These two, no doubt great players having great seasons, are breaking new ground in turnovers.

**To Harden's credit, though, he takes a lot fewer shots than Russ and has a TS% that is 70 points higher. Probably why his team, though not in the running for a ring this year and kind of meh, is better than Russ's.

[themiddle54]

I'll take the Wiz starting five over every other non-Dubs starting five in the league right now.

[Tim]

I'll take the Wiz starting five over every other non-Dubs starting five in the league right now.

Scott Brooks has to be in the running for COY.

[themiddle54]

I'd probably lean Brad Stevens right now considering Boston has had to deal with injuries to Horford and Bradley but is 2 games behind CLE in the East and has the best road record in the East. There's a case to be made for Quin Snyder too, who has Utah 5th in the West via incredibly stingy team defense, and they've done it without George Hill for a lot of the year, and without Rodney Hood for the last month.

[Farewell Friends]

Good post, TM54. I really like Westbrook, but every time I've watched him this season, it's been hard to watch. I get that they don't have much of a supporting cast, but he's clearly just out there trying to get numbers.

[themiddle54]

He's playing Me Against The World basketball and that's never good for the W column.

[themiddle54]

I made a series of $10 prop bets with a friend to start the season. I'm in bad shape on a lot of them (I had Kawhi for MVP this year and bet against Harden being the assists leader, which I have no idea how my friend knew that was coming...) but one that I'm starting to feel really good about is I bet the Celtics vs the field for the Finals coming out of the East. With K-Love going down for six weeks and the Cavs already stinking and the Celtics being super hot (even without Avery Bradley) I like my chances at winning that bet.

The MVP race is going to be fun to watch. We have no clear-cut front-runner and a few to pick from out of the two traditional types of MVPs.

Westbrook / Harden - stat machines with ridiculously high usage

I. Thomas / Wall / KD / Kawhi / Lebron - elite players on excellent teams.

The Wiz are quickly becoming my favorite team to watch. If I had to rank my LeaguePass preferences it would be:
1. Dubs
2. Wiz
3. Celtics
4. Kings (just to see what Boogie does, both emotionally and to fill the stat sheet)
5. T-Wolves (fun young team)
6/7/8. Spurs/Utah/Memphis (because they play that style of disciplined basketball where they make their opponent play to their style, and never break their gameplan)

[Farewell Friends]

I've been checked out recently, but don't the Wizards have one of the most putrid benches in the league?

[themiddle54]

I've been checked out recently, but don't the Wizards have one of the most putrid benches in the league?

Yes, and that's part of the fun of them. The starters score 84% of their points last time I looked like a week ago. Wall is an MVP grade guy. Markieff Morris has been playing like a man on a mission for like a month. Beal is a stud. Otto Porter has the highest TS% in the NBA. Gortat is a rock solid big.

....

and then it's like Kelly Oubre, who's a decent young player with some upside, and not much more. The starters log a ton of minutes and might break down by the playoffs, but for now while they are healthy there's only one team I'd rather tune in to watch, because their starting five is probably second to only GS in the NBA.

Also, I live in in a city where our team's marketing motto for next year should be: "Your 2017-18 Chicago Bulls: Hey, At Least We're Not The Knicks*" so I need to find my NBA jollies somewhere. And Washington is pretty good for that.

*with the caveat that the Bulls don't have any young talent along the lines of Kyle O'Quinn, Willy Hernangomez, Zinger, Brandon Jennings, or Kuzminskas, and that the Bulls future looks way bleaker than the Knicks, they just happen to be in a milder state of chaos and disfunction right now than the Knicks.