Man I don't give a fukk about you looking at the box score of every single game and trying to figure out if he was stat padding or not. You're a moron for that. You don't get context for a guy having "10 bo ards" instead of what, do you expect him to be getting 15 to insure he's not stat padding? That doesn't make any damn sense.
You don't get 10-11 rebounds SIXTEEN times and only get 9 rebounds once unless you trying hard to make sure you get that 10th. It's not statistically possible.
Look at Harden and Lebron. They get stuck on 9 boards or 9 assists and barely miss a triple-double ALL THE TIME. Westbrook almost never does. The last time it happened, it was against the Suns, and you know what Russ was doing? Passing to his teammates for the final 6 shots. How is THAT suddenly the game where Westbrook doesn't need to take every single shot down the stretch, when he just happened to be 1 assist away from a triple-double?
This aint fair as this isn't what he does. You expect a guy to make perfect decisions passing to a bunch of guys that ain't scorers. He has two other scorers on that team, Kanter/Oladipo, or have both missed time and he's been forced to make plays for some of the most inept players on the team.
This is why people like you deserve to be shyt on because you don't talk about the plays that go wrong. You don't talk about when he finds Roberson wide open and he just breaks wide open jumpers, or fukks up layups, or just plain can't do with the ball. You don't talk about when he dumps it off inside to Adams and he mishandles the ball or he's too far from the basket so he can't make a play whatsoever. You don't talk about when he passes it to Grant in the corner and Grant can't hit corner 3's because he's another bad offensive player. You don't talk about the fact you want a guy to always be making the right play when he's a guy that is far better at scoring inside the 3 point line yet is surrounded by players that can't shoot, so much so that he's the team's third best three point shooter percentage wise.
But ya, you're right, he obviously only ever passes to get 10 assists and then just drops passing altogether. He certainly wouldn't be averaging more assists if maybe some of the players he passed to could actually shooter.
If they can't shoot, then how is he racking up 10 assists in the first half sometimes?
And how come he can rack up 10 assists in the first half and then shoot 18 times with only 1 assist in the second half?
Why is it in games where he only gets 4-5 assists in the first half, suddenly THOSE are the games where he gets 6-7 second-half assists?
Why does he come in the middle of the 4th quarter and usually take 10-15 shots without an assist to end the game...unless he's chasing an assist mark, and then all the sudden his guys have open shots?
lol wat. More dumb shyt. His big men box out and he secures the rebound and then pushes the fast break. The thunder have one of the best transition games in the league and it's almost entirely because of Westbrook. Getting uncontested rebounds is not a bad thing, it means players are being boxed out and the ball is being safely secured.
No the Thunder do NOT have one of the best transition games in the league. And tell me, which makes the fast break start quicker - the PG getting an outlet pass when he's already running up court the second the rebound is in the air, or the PG running down from the perimeter to secure the rebound, stopping, turning around, and then running the whole distance having to dribble the ball himself?
Guess who the best rebounding team in the league is? It's the team that has a point guard averaging 10 rebounds per game because he's getting uncontested rebounds as the bigs ARE doing their job of boxing out.
The Thunder are NOT the best rebounding team in the NBA this year. The Thunder were literally the best rebounding team in HISTORY last year, due to having guys like Adams and Kanter and with Westbrook working for his own boards too, while getting uncontested boards at a more normal rate. This year they're 2nd in rebounding rate, which is still quite good, but they've fall off more than 2 boards/game from where they were last year and are 5th in the NBA in defensive rebounding rate, which is exactly where Westbrook is trying to stat-pad.
I won't tell you that, he does hurt them on defense. You know who else takes defensive possessions off? Lebron James when he decides he doesn't want to run back or he wants to go for a steal instead of staying on his man. It looks great when it pays off though, right?
Yes, Lebron occasionally takes plays off. That happens when you play more minutes than anyone in the league, are 260lbs, and are expected to be the most important player on your team on both ends of the court. Lebron taking plays off is literally necessary for him to stay on the floor and help the Cavs. You see them get outscored 31-9 by freaking Miami when he was off the floor for just 9 minutes the other night?
The Cavs are still FAR better on defense with Lebron and more often than not he's playing like the best defender on the Cavs.
Westbrook ain't taking a few plays off on defense because he's tired from playing defense hard the rest of the time. He's taking nearly all his plays off on defense, half to chase rebounds and half to conserve energy so he can stat-pad on the other end. It has nothing to do with helping his team win.
But the way spin it, you're outright saying all he does is hurt his team. That is laughable. Why don't you start breaking down what every single one of his teammates does wrong and get back to me.
Because we're not comparing Westbrook to his teammates. We're comparing him to actual MVP candidates. And chasing box score stats don't get you there.
