Ronald Martinez/NBAE/Getty Images
In ESPN.com’s massive player ranking project, Russell Westbrook has been put 15th among all active NBA players. That’s pretty darn good. Especially considering he only completed his third season and is just 22 years old.
The question is, too high, too low or just right? Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com makes the point as well as I could: “Statistically, he’s on par with Derrick Rose, right down to their essentially identical player efficiency ratings (23.6 and 23.5, respectively). Westbrook’s decision-making still makes you cringe sometimes, but then again, I made far worse decisions as a 22-year-old.”
Bingo, bango.
I guess the right question to ask might be, who are the 14 players in front of Westbrook and should they be there? We don’t know the exact order, but we know LeBron, Kobe, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash (14th), Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Derrick Rose, Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin and Amare Stoudemire.
Would you put Westbrook in front of any of those guys? I would. In front of Nash and Carmelo, and that’s probably it. Melo is overvalued as a scorer — which he’s a very good one, mind you — but he’s a one-dimensional player. He doesn’t pass, he doesn’t defend and he doesn’t create. He scores. So does Monta Ellis and you don’t see us putting him in the top 15.
Nash for really the only reason that I think he’s in the twilight of his prime and besides not being able to guard players like Westbrook much less players like Jose Calderon, he doesn’t have quite the same nightly impact he used to. Still a top 15 player for sure, but behind Westbrook.
The ticks against Westbrook are this:
Beckley Mason says Westbrook’s spot is just right. “His game only lacks the nuance and restraint born of experience.”
Two of the five say he’s too high. Brendan Jackson of Celtics Hub: “And not because of his underwhelming playoff performance. I’m just not ready to put Westbrook in the top 15. He’s freakishly athletic, quick and talented, but until he learns how to be a true floor general he’s just another great player.” I have to disagree with the word “underwhelming.” Westbrook averaged 23.8 points and 6.4 assists per game, notched a Game 7 triple-double and with the Mavericks bracketing KD, almost carried his team into the NBA Finals.
But with Westbrook 15th and KD to be in the top 10, the Thunder are just one of four teams to have a duo in the top 15 of NBA Rank (Lakers, Heat and Knicks are the others). Westbrook has never really gathered the amount of respect he probably deserves, but then again, maybe that’s a good thing. He seems to find a lot of motivation in people doubting him.
Would the Thunder have beaten Dallas this season if they hadn't nullified the Chandler trade? It is a hypothetical but unless Dallas found something close to as good for them instead I'd say likely yes. Would they have beaten Miami with Chandler? Probably tougher than against Dallas without Chandler but doable. With Chandler and Ron Adams (if they had made him the highest paid assistant in the league to convince hi to stay)? The odds of success would have gone up. Chandler, Adams and better management of Westbrook and lineups? I'd say a very good chance they'd have won the title this season. There is a difference between doing a lot of things right and doing everything necessary to beat everyone else. But so it goes. Still have chances in the future. Might need one or two more adjustments to climb the final hills though.
The good news is Brooks played these 5 lineups about 25 minutes per game in the playoffs. If he repeats that they get to 2000 minutes in a full season. They could potentially go higher on the minutes. Hopefully the starting lineup will perform like they did in the regular season instead of the disaster they were in the playoffs, especially against the Mavs.
The starting lineup is the lowest rated on raw +/- and next to lowest on Adjusted +/- but if Brooks plays these 5 lineups a lot that would be good.
These were the 5 best returning lineups that played over 50 minutes last season:
Westbrook- Sefolosha- Durant- Ibaka- Perkins
Westbrook - Harden - Durant- Ibaka, - Collison
Maynor,- Cook- Harden- Collison- Mohammed
Maynor - Harden- Durant- Ibaka- Collison
Westbrook,- Harden- Durant- Ibaka- Perkins
They got about 750 minutes, low in part because of the early rigidity with Green and then the trade. Next season these 5 lineups probably should get 1500-2000 minutes. The Lakers best 5 lineups got over 2000 minutes. Dallas, over 1100 minutes and they had an injury issue. Miami 1200, Chicago 1300.
In the Dallas series the starters went down by 5 or more in their first stint on the floor in 4 of the 5 games. In the 3rd quarter the starters never won that first stint but lost it by less on average than the 1st quarter.
The current Thunder starting lineup is their best defensive unit that played over 50 minutes. It was the 7th best on raw +/- and 5th best on Adjusted +/-. It might be alright to roll that out but if they get down by 6 quickly I'd be tempted to change to one of the real good alternatives.
Both Rose and Westbrook will have to play better than they did in this playoffs and particularly in the conference finals to get to the Finals and win it. They are capable. They have to play the right way and at or near the top of their game though.
Brooks finished the game with that lineup in the Dallas series zero times.
The top performing lineup last regular season was Westbrook-Harden-Durant-Ibaka-Collison. Almost no chance they start it but I'd finish with it.
Of the 4 best offensive lineups used over 50 minutes with Westbrook, 3 had Harden in them. Naturally all had Durant, but one had him at PF and Thabo at SF. 3 had Ibaka, 2 Green, 2 Krstic. Only 1 of these lineups is still possible- the one with Durant at PF.
Of the 13 lineups over 50 minutes in the regular season the new starting lineup was the 3rd worst on offensive efficiency. Sub Harden into that starting lineup and it was smack in the middle at 7th best of 13. Not bad but not great. Do they just want 'not bad" on offense or do they want a great starting lineup on offense?
Rose had the exact same TS% of .499 in the playoffs as Westbrook. Rose was 30th percentile in eFG% instead of Rusell's 20th percentile. Rose was tied for 2nd on turnovers per game in the playoffs for PGs. Rose had a modest lead on Offensive rating of 107 to 103. I'd say their offensive performances were similar on average.
Rose shot 36% from the field and 23% from 3 pt land against Miami, again similar to Russell vs Dallas. But he had a better floor game than Russell with 6.6 assists and 3.8 turnovers in the conference finals. Still more alike than different and not that great.
Crow :Westbrookâs eFG% in the playoffs was at the 20th percentile for those who played 20+ minutes per game. By getting to the line a lot he pulled his TS% up to 40th percentile but hard for me to praise the performance of an extremely high usage player when his TS% in the playoffs is below average for rotation players.
How do you feel about Derrick Rose's playoffs, from this perspective?
I think it's worth noting that Westbrook's overall nosedive in efficiency occurred after the trade, when he played many of his minutes with the offensively challenged starting lineup. NBA Statscube is unavailable, but I recall even his playoff numbers looked better in lineups that featured Harden or Collison in the game. Starting with Sefolosha, Perkins, Ibaka put too much pressure on him offensively.
Westbrook's turnovers per game were the 2nd highest in the playoffs (Howard was higher). Not as bad when you look at TO% per possession used but it was still 3rd highest on the team to Perkins (highest TO% of anyone in all of the playoffs) and Thabo.
Westbrook's eFG% in the playoffs was at the 20th percentile for those who played 20+ minutes per game. By getting to the line a lot he pulled his TS% up to 40th percentile but hard for me to praise the performance of an extremely high usage player when his TS% in the playoffs is below average for rotation players.
There are going to be playoff ups and downs. Durant was down in 2010. If they both have a strong late push they could win it all. There was no super unbeatable team last season. There probably won't be next season but have to wait 'n see what Dallas, Miami and Chicago do when GMs get back into action.
Against Dallas Westbrook scored 23.6 pts per game but took 20 shots per game and took about 6 more possessions at the line to get there. He shot 36% from the field and 2 for 10 from 3 pt range. He averaged 4.8 assists and 4.8 turnovers per game.
"almost carried his team into the NBA Finals"
Admittedly there are different way to look at it.
The other side would be that they were one 6 point surge in the 4th quarter of game 2 that moved them from a tie after 3 quarters to a victory away from getting swept by Dallas.
Underwhelming playoff performance by Westbrook?
A check of the playoff stats compared to regular season:
Worse- PER, eFG%, TS%, AST%, ST%, Block%, Def Reb%, Turnover%, Personal Fouls, Off Rtg, Def RTg, Adjusted +/-, Win Shares
Better- Off Reb%
Underwhelming seems fair enough to me.
Westbrook's Playoff Adjusted +/- estimate was the 18th worst of those measured (probably 125- 150 players got rated), 9th worst of any starter.
http://basketballvalue.com/topplayers.php?year=2011%20playoffs&mode=summary&sortnumber=94&sortorder=ASC
I haven't the NBA rank project to know what basis they are using for the ranking (past performance, expectations for next season or long term desirability or undefined) but whatever the basis is I'd put Westbrook a bit lower than 15th. 20-25th probably. I'm not that impressed with the level of top talent in the league right now.
I agree, Justin. Living in Atlanta, I have a lot of respect for Horford - my favorite Hawk. Aldridge also had a pretty impressive year - better than I ever expected. And Randolph was really the main man for an impressive Memphis team.
I think it's funny that the Knicks have 2 players in the top 15. Individually, I don't have a huge problem with it...but they are both scorers and lousy defenders, so as a pair they make the Knicks LESS than the sum of their parts.
I think it's interesting he's ranked ahead of the pack of PF's i.e. Love, Aldridge, Randolph, Horford...
I don't have a big problem with where RW is ranked. I have more of a problem with where Rose is ranked (just like I have a problem with him being an MVP above, um, Durant). They are similar and Rose might should be 1 or 2 spots ahead of Westbrook, but he is going to end up being ranked too high.
I think it's fair. I'm not a huge Carmelo fan but I think right now he's got more value to a team than Russ in most circumstances.
If Russ tries again on defense he'd be better than Nash, Carmelo, maybe Amar'e and/or Griffin. As great as Russ was last season, his regression defensively keeps me from putting him higher than 15 since everyone ahead of him has more utility as an offensive player IMO.
I think the OSU comparison is kinda interesting though (sorry for the NCAAF parallel but do we have any basketball yet?): FD: I'm an OkState fan, but I agree that it is hard to say where they are in the "rank" of things until they conquer their biggest test (being OU at the end of the year). The raw materials are there (great QB, WRs-RBs, power Offense, decent defense, good coaching arguably, good timing this year), but can they put it all together.
Russ, maybe in comparison to Rose, maybe just in comparison to himself-has all the raw pieces, he's an incredible player-but there's a sense that he hasn't yet overcome (a more vague) a major few hurdles to being utterly dominant.
I think he will, and this year (please Lord) is as good as any. I'm a huge fan. go honey badger.
15 seems pretty fair. Immensely strong and fast but not dominant (yet) is what I would think, and 15 shows that well.
Sidenote, saw KD at Apple Store today getting a new iphone I'm guessing. Man I'm glad he's in our city. holy crap he's tall. Still just working out the random encounter with my star struck brain.
I think Russ is undervalued given where his closest comparison will be ranked (Rose), but I think anywhere from 15-20 is reasonable. He produces, no matter what I think about his decision making, and that's the most important thing. Looking at the players around him, I try to think, "If someone offered me a trade of X player for Westbrook, for only one season, would I take it?"
I wouldn't trade him for Melo or Amare. I might trade him for Nash if it was only one year - so them being neck and neck is fine with me. But, for one year, I would probably trade him for Horford or Aldridge. So, he's well ranked in my opinion.
I don't necessarily think of Russ as a top 15 player, but he is kind of like OSU football. Are they a top 10 team...I don't really think so, but you can't list 10 teams that are better than them, so I guess they are a top 10 team.
With that in mind...I took a look at 16-20 (descending: Randolph, Duncan, Manu, Rondo, Love)...I'd take the honeybadger over everyone in that group but Manu, who I think is undervalued here. I also would take Russ ahead of Nash, Amare, and DWill. SO...I guess I have Russ at #13.
Oh yeah. You're right. The list of Bulls players doesn't show his rank.
diddoff :How is Joakim Noah a Top 12 player? Is he better than Melo, Stoudemire, Russ and Rondo?
I don't believe he is...
@ diddoff
Ignore that, Noah came in at 29.
@ diddoff
Huh, if Noah is still not ranked that leaves too many players left for the last 11 spots. This ought to be interesting.
You might be interested to know that Bill Simmons takes essentially the same stance as you on the whole "Let Us Play" twitter campaign in the 'first part' of his NFL picks column this week (the first part barely even mentions the sport).
How is Joakim Noah a Top 12 player? Is he better than Melo, Stoudemire, Russ and Rondo?