This is a long-ass post, but maybe some of ya'all need to learn something about basketball. So I'm laying this record all the way out.
Up by nine with 10 seconds left in the game, Westbrook is 1 assist shy of a triple double. He gets the ball in the backcourt, pauses cause everyone think the game is over, then races downcourt and passes to Ibaka for a score with 6 seconds left to secure his 10th assist.
"You don't do that. The game is over with," Atlanta coach Larry Drew said. "The game is over with. You've got the ball, you run the clock out. Just that plain and simple."
"When you've got the game won, you run the clock out," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "Russell knows how I feel about situations like that, and it was a mistake.”
Russell knows how I feel about situations like that, and he did it anyway. That game was 6 years ago.
Last week, down by 7 with five seconds left, Westbrook gets the ball after a free throw. With the game over, he takes two steps and launches a pass to Alex Abrines coming backdoor. One Phoenix defender was back and deflected the pass, which was completely irrelevant to the outcome of the game, but prevented Westbrook from getting his 10th assist.
That was the 5th straight shot that Westbrook had deferred to one of his teammates. Westbrook usually takes all the shots in such scenarios – he’d just taken the final 5 shots of the game in the EXACT same situation two nights earlier, and the final 4 shots of the game in the one before that. But this time, in a close game where Westbrook had already taken 30 shots, he passed up the final five shots in a desperate attempt to get that triple-double.
Yes, Westbrook is a stat-stuffer. He always has been a stat-stuffer. He’s just on it extra this year.
Something Westbrook started three months ago (since the triple-double streak started in December) is to chase assists until he has his triple-double secured, then switch to putting up shots like crazy. For example:
December 5: Westbrook gets 8 assists in the first half and his 10th with 6:19 still remaining in the 3rd, more than 18 minutes left in the game. He takes 11 shots in 10 more minutes of play but only gets 2 more assists.
December 9: Westbrook gets 7 assists in the first half and his 10th with 8:03 left in the 3rd to maintain his streak of seven consecutive triple-doubles. He doesn’t get another assist the entire game, but takes 14 more shots.
December 23: Westbrook racks up 9 assists in the first half and his 10th with 9:32 left in the 3rd quarter. He only gets one more assist the rest of the game, though he takes another 10 shots.
December 27: Westbrook secures his 10th assist with 3:39 still left in the SECOND quarter. 10 assists in 20 minutes. So in the next 28 minutes of game time, he takes 14 shots compared to only 1 assist.
February 3: Westbrook has 8 assists in the first half and gets his 10th assist with 7:28 left in the 3rd quarter. He takes 11 shots and 9 free throws the rest of the way but only manages 2 more assists.
February 15: Westbrook gets his 10th assist just before the half ends, and his 11th with 11:50 remaining in the 3rd quarter. He then takes 14 shots the rest of the way, but only gets 1 more assist.
February 26: Westbrook has 9 assists in the first half and gets his 10th with 9:05 left in the 3rd. He only puts up one more assist the rest of the game, jacking up thirteen shots in the 4th quarter alone.
February 28: Westbrook gets 9 assists in the first half, but only one more assist the rest of the game (with 8:43 left in the 4th to complete his triple-double). After getting his 10th assist with a 13 point lead, he then misses 7 shots in 5 minutes, letting Utah back in the game, before making his next 5 attempts to get the Thunder the win. 6-13 shooting without a single assist once the triple-double was completed, to blow a 13-point lead before salvaging a 3-point win. This was the game that “proved” Russ was clutch, according to the Coli.
You might assume that Westbrook passes in the first half and shoots in the second. But that’s not true….not when he hasn’t hit 10 assists yet. In games where he doesn’t get the triple-double mark early, he keeps hunting assists until the end of the game. It’s no problem for Westbrook to get 2nd-half assists when he needs them.
For instance, in a November 30 game during the triple-double streak, Westbrook only had 6 assists when the 4th quarter started…so he proceeded to get 4 assists compared to just 6 shots over the next 7 minutes. Of course, once he had secured that 10th assist, he then ended the game on a 9-shot flurry (plus 6 trips to the line) compared to just more 1 assist. And there's been plenty like that:
January 7: Westbrook only has 4 assists when the first half ends. So he only takes 3 shots compared to 6 assists in the next 16 minutes of the second half, finally finishing the triple-double with 8:08 left in the game. With that in hand, he launches 8 shots to only 1 more assist for the rest of the game.
January 15: Gets his 9th assist with 6:01 left in the game and his 10th with 3:46 left in the game.
January 18: Only 6 first-half assists, so works for 7 in the 2nd half to get the triple double.
January 21: Only 5 first-half assists, so he focuses on assists in the 2nd half and gets 9 more.
January 23: Starts slow on assists but keeps working for the triple-double to the end, getting his 9th assist with 4:32 left in game and 10th assist with 1:04 left.
January 25: Gets his 10th assist with 4:55 left in game.
January 29: Gets his 9th assist with 3:48 left and 10th assist with 3:14 left in blowout loss.
February 9: Gets 9th assist with 3:04 left and 10th assist with 2:08 left, turning the game into a joke by purposely messing around with their 8-point lead and not going to the hoop when he was open and cherry-picking, instead standing outside the three-point line so he can wait for Oladipo and put up a joke of a 10th assist for the triple-double:
Surprisingly, Westbrook has seven games this year where he got stuck on 9 assists. But 4 of those 7 games came in the first month of the season, before Russ went on his triple-double streak and began getting noise about averaging a triple-double for the season. Of the 3 nine-assist games since, one was the Suns game where he tried to get the 10th and failed, and the other the Portland game where he only had 3 rebounds and thus couldn’t get a triple-double anyway.
From October 26 to November 23, less than a month, Westbrook had four games with 9 assists and three games with 10-11 assists.
Since November 23rd, after the triple-double narrative got going, Westbrook has only three games with 9 assists, and TWELVE games with 10-11 assists.
Of course the argument isn't that Westbrook's "only" goal is to chase a triple-double, or that he "only" gets assists when he's triple-double chasing. But it is clear that Westbrook's play is affected by his desire to get those triple-doubles. When he's chasing assists, he plays differently than when he's taking shots for himself - and he tends to chase assists based on whether or not he's on track for a triple double that night, or already has it in hand.
Does it hurt the team? Maybe, because he's less likely to make the best play for the situation. Then again, Westbrook has proved over the last 7 years that he rarely knows what the best play is, so maybe stat-chasing doesn’t hurt his game as much as it would hurt, say, CP3. But if opponents are catching on to Westbrook’s stat-chasing, it makes him easier to defend, knowing when he’s more likely to pass and when he’s more likely to shoot based on what his box score needs.
There are people who try to say, “despite all that, the proof is in the results. When Westbrook racks up stats, the Thunder win games.” That’s a confusion of cause and effect. The Thunder don’t get wins because Westbrook chased stats that night – Westbrook chases stats every night. Russ chasing triple-doubles in the losses just as much as in the wins.
Let me repeat this for the slow people who know nothing about basketball beyond reading the box score and, despite my warning, will regurgitate off their favorite cable channel, "BUT WESTBROOK WINS 77% OF HIS GAMES WHEN HE HAS A TRIPLE-DOUBLE."
Yes, and the sun is shining 100% of the time there's a rainbow. But rainbows don't cause sunshine.
Westbrook finds it easier to get a triple-double when the Thunder are winning the game for 3 reasons:
* Rebounds are easier when your opponent is missing shots. Westbrook only averages 1.7 offensive boards in his wins, he actually gets MORE offensive boards in his losses. But he averages 9.7 defensive boards/game in wins, compared to only 7.5 defensive boards/game in losses. Why? Because when the other team is losing, and missing a lot of shots, it's easier to get rebounds. Thunder opponents are averaging 50% from the field when they beat the Thunder, and only 43% from the field when they lose to the Thunder. THAT is why there are more rebounds available in wins. Westbrook gets two more boards a game in wins, and thus gets more triple-doubles, because the opponents miss more shots. Westbrook can't get boards in the losses because the other team is making its shots.
* Assists are easier to get when your teammates make more shots. Russ is making the same number of shots in wins and losses, but Russ's teammates are making FIVE more shots in the wins than in the losses. Those extra made shots make Westbrook more likely to get his 10 assists. They aren't winning because Westbrook is getting a triple double, they're winning because they're MAKING SHOTS...and that helps Westbrook pad out his triple-double.
* The Thunder have 7 blowout losses where Russ has played 30 or fewer minutes. He couldn't get a triple-double in any of those games because he sat too early due to the blowout.
(I put all that shyt in large font because I know the rock-brains are still going to regurgitate the same mindless statistical argument, as if they know nothing about basketball other than what's in the box score, unless I make it really obvious to them.)
The argument is not that Westbrook is a poor passer. It's that Westbrook getting a "triple-double" by securing the 10th assist is meaningless. He's chasing those triple-doubles, he's been chasing them his whole career but taking it to a new level this year, and whether or not he gets a 10th assist don't have shyt to do with how valuable he is as a player.
Up by nine with 10 seconds left in the game, Westbrook is 1 assist shy of a triple double. He gets the ball in the backcourt, pauses cause everyone think the game is over, then races downcourt and passes to Ibaka for a score with 6 seconds left to secure his 10th assist.
"You don't do that. The game is over with," Atlanta coach Larry Drew said. "The game is over with. You've got the ball, you run the clock out. Just that plain and simple."
"When you've got the game won, you run the clock out," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "Russell knows how I feel about situations like that, and it was a mistake.”
Russell knows how I feel about situations like that, and he did it anyway. That game was 6 years ago.
Last week, down by 7 with five seconds left, Westbrook gets the ball after a free throw. With the game over, he takes two steps and launches a pass to Alex Abrines coming backdoor. One Phoenix defender was back and deflected the pass, which was completely irrelevant to the outcome of the game, but prevented Westbrook from getting his 10th assist.
That was the 5th straight shot that Westbrook had deferred to one of his teammates. Westbrook usually takes all the shots in such scenarios – he’d just taken the final 5 shots of the game in the EXACT same situation two nights earlier, and the final 4 shots of the game in the one before that. But this time, in a close game where Westbrook had already taken 30 shots, he passed up the final five shots in a desperate attempt to get that triple-double.
Yes, Westbrook is a stat-stuffer. He always has been a stat-stuffer. He’s just on it extra this year.
Something Westbrook started three months ago (since the triple-double streak started in December) is to chase assists until he has his triple-double secured, then switch to putting up shots like crazy. For example:
December 5: Westbrook gets 8 assists in the first half and his 10th with 6:19 still remaining in the 3rd, more than 18 minutes left in the game. He takes 11 shots in 10 more minutes of play but only gets 2 more assists.
December 9: Westbrook gets 7 assists in the first half and his 10th with 8:03 left in the 3rd to maintain his streak of seven consecutive triple-doubles. He doesn’t get another assist the entire game, but takes 14 more shots.
December 23: Westbrook racks up 9 assists in the first half and his 10th with 9:32 left in the 3rd quarter. He only gets one more assist the rest of the game, though he takes another 10 shots.
December 27: Westbrook secures his 10th assist with 3:39 still left in the SECOND quarter. 10 assists in 20 minutes. So in the next 28 minutes of game time, he takes 14 shots compared to only 1 assist.
February 3: Westbrook has 8 assists in the first half and gets his 10th assist with 7:28 left in the 3rd quarter. He takes 11 shots and 9 free throws the rest of the way but only manages 2 more assists.
February 15: Westbrook gets his 10th assist just before the half ends, and his 11th with 11:50 remaining in the 3rd quarter. He then takes 14 shots the rest of the way, but only gets 1 more assist.
February 26: Westbrook has 9 assists in the first half and gets his 10th with 9:05 left in the 3rd. He only puts up one more assist the rest of the game, jacking up thirteen shots in the 4th quarter alone.
February 28: Westbrook gets 9 assists in the first half, but only one more assist the rest of the game (with 8:43 left in the 4th to complete his triple-double). After getting his 10th assist with a 13 point lead, he then misses 7 shots in 5 minutes, letting Utah back in the game, before making his next 5 attempts to get the Thunder the win. 6-13 shooting without a single assist once the triple-double was completed, to blow a 13-point lead before salvaging a 3-point win. This was the game that “proved” Russ was clutch, according to the Coli.
You might assume that Westbrook passes in the first half and shoots in the second. But that’s not true….not when he hasn’t hit 10 assists yet. In games where he doesn’t get the triple-double mark early, he keeps hunting assists until the end of the game. It’s no problem for Westbrook to get 2nd-half assists when he needs them.
For instance, in a November 30 game during the triple-double streak, Westbrook only had 6 assists when the 4th quarter started…so he proceeded to get 4 assists compared to just 6 shots over the next 7 minutes. Of course, once he had secured that 10th assist, he then ended the game on a 9-shot flurry (plus 6 trips to the line) compared to just more 1 assist. And there's been plenty like that:
January 7: Westbrook only has 4 assists when the first half ends. So he only takes 3 shots compared to 6 assists in the next 16 minutes of the second half, finally finishing the triple-double with 8:08 left in the game. With that in hand, he launches 8 shots to only 1 more assist for the rest of the game.
January 15: Gets his 9th assist with 6:01 left in the game and his 10th with 3:46 left in the game.
January 18: Only 6 first-half assists, so works for 7 in the 2nd half to get the triple double.
January 21: Only 5 first-half assists, so he focuses on assists in the 2nd half and gets 9 more.
January 23: Starts slow on assists but keeps working for the triple-double to the end, getting his 9th assist with 4:32 left in game and 10th assist with 1:04 left.
January 25: Gets his 10th assist with 4:55 left in game.
January 29: Gets his 9th assist with 3:48 left and 10th assist with 3:14 left in blowout loss.
February 9: Gets 9th assist with 3:04 left and 10th assist with 2:08 left, turning the game into a joke by purposely messing around with their 8-point lead and not going to the hoop when he was open and cherry-picking, instead standing outside the three-point line so he can wait for Oladipo and put up a joke of a 10th assist for the triple-double:
Surprisingly, Westbrook has seven games this year where he got stuck on 9 assists. But 4 of those 7 games came in the first month of the season, before Russ went on his triple-double streak and began getting noise about averaging a triple-double for the season. Of the 3 nine-assist games since, one was the Suns game where he tried to get the 10th and failed, and the other the Portland game where he only had 3 rebounds and thus couldn’t get a triple-double anyway.
From October 26 to November 23, less than a month, Westbrook had four games with 9 assists and three games with 10-11 assists.
Since November 23rd, after the triple-double narrative got going, Westbrook has only three games with 9 assists, and TWELVE games with 10-11 assists.
Of course the argument isn't that Westbrook's "only" goal is to chase a triple-double, or that he "only" gets assists when he's triple-double chasing. But it is clear that Westbrook's play is affected by his desire to get those triple-doubles. When he's chasing assists, he plays differently than when he's taking shots for himself - and he tends to chase assists based on whether or not he's on track for a triple double that night, or already has it in hand.
Does it hurt the team? Maybe, because he's less likely to make the best play for the situation. Then again, Westbrook has proved over the last 7 years that he rarely knows what the best play is, so maybe stat-chasing doesn’t hurt his game as much as it would hurt, say, CP3. But if opponents are catching on to Westbrook’s stat-chasing, it makes him easier to defend, knowing when he’s more likely to pass and when he’s more likely to shoot based on what his box score needs.
There are people who try to say, “despite all that, the proof is in the results. When Westbrook racks up stats, the Thunder win games.” That’s a confusion of cause and effect. The Thunder don’t get wins because Westbrook chased stats that night – Westbrook chases stats every night. Russ chasing triple-doubles in the losses just as much as in the wins.
Let me repeat this for the slow people who know nothing about basketball beyond reading the box score and, despite my warning, will regurgitate off their favorite cable channel, "BUT WESTBROOK WINS 77% OF HIS GAMES WHEN HE HAS A TRIPLE-DOUBLE."
Yes, and the sun is shining 100% of the time there's a rainbow. But rainbows don't cause sunshine.
Westbrook finds it easier to get a triple-double when the Thunder are winning the game for 3 reasons:
* Rebounds are easier when your opponent is missing shots. Westbrook only averages 1.7 offensive boards in his wins, he actually gets MORE offensive boards in his losses. But he averages 9.7 defensive boards/game in wins, compared to only 7.5 defensive boards/game in losses. Why? Because when the other team is losing, and missing a lot of shots, it's easier to get rebounds. Thunder opponents are averaging 50% from the field when they beat the Thunder, and only 43% from the field when they lose to the Thunder. THAT is why there are more rebounds available in wins. Westbrook gets two more boards a game in wins, and thus gets more triple-doubles, because the opponents miss more shots. Westbrook can't get boards in the losses because the other team is making its shots.
* Assists are easier to get when your teammates make more shots. Russ is making the same number of shots in wins and losses, but Russ's teammates are making FIVE more shots in the wins than in the losses. Those extra made shots make Westbrook more likely to get his 10 assists. They aren't winning because Westbrook is getting a triple double, they're winning because they're MAKING SHOTS...and that helps Westbrook pad out his triple-double.
* The Thunder have 7 blowout losses where Russ has played 30 or fewer minutes. He couldn't get a triple-double in any of those games because he sat too early due to the blowout.
(I put all that shyt in large font because I know the rock-brains are still going to regurgitate the same mindless statistical argument, as if they know nothing about basketball other than what's in the box score, unless I make it really obvious to them.)
The argument is not that Westbrook is a poor passer. It's that Westbrook getting a "triple-double" by securing the 10th assist is meaningless. He's chasing those triple-doubles, he's been chasing them his whole career but taking it to a new level this year, and whether or not he gets a 10th assist don't have shyt to do with how valuable he is as a player.
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no one is reading your bullshyt man 
