Russell Westbrook and where OKC’s offense comes from

“That we need him. That we miss him.”

That’s what Kevin Durant said during the playoffs last season when asked what he had learned about playing without Russell Westbrook.

It was that simple.

Because Westbrook does so much for the Thunder, and Durant. He disrupts opposing defenses, collapsing them with the constant pressure he puts on them. He runs an offense, setting up teammates with open looks, and good passes. And, he’s a wrecking ball scorer that can pile up 10 points in the blink of an eye.

We all got a glimpse of what the Thunder are like without Westbrook, and what his true value is. He’s taken a lot of criticism the past few seasons, but maybe the best PR move of his career was getting hurt. Since Westbrook has only missed nine games — all in the postseason — the last five years, the sample size of really statistically understanding his impact isn’t really there. But we all saw it. It was obvious.

One area that the Thunder suffered was in sound shot creation. Put it simply: In the playoffs, the Thunder were getting bad shots. Part of that blame is Scott Brooks — as outlined here — because the Thunder’s offensive system is called “Be Awesome Russ and KD” and there’s not really anything mechanical designed to get players like Thabo Sefolosha and Serge Ibaka and Kevin Martin good looks. It just became about Durant absorbing what Westbrook does so brilliantly. Durant had to attack, create, distract and disrupt. He had to create shots for teammates, while still creating his own. The catch though? He didn’t have his running buddy to create any for him.

Tom Ziller of SB Nation had a pretty interesting piece today about what shot creation is and if it even matters. There’s some discussion about what “creating shots” actually means. Because all shots are not created equal. J.R. Smith can create a shot (for himself) in crowded closet. The shots players like LeBron and Westbrook and Durant create for themselves are often higher percentage looks.

Here’s Ziller’s explanation:

Here’s the theory, and my position on it: some players are superior at getting good looks at the basket for teammates and themselves. Be it through quickness and agility, excellent ball-handling skills, passing, aggressiveness, lack of conscience or, in most cases, some combination of all of the above, these players get off clean looks. Other players, due to lack of the above attributes, create less frequently. Of those, some may rely on a creator to set up the shot.

For example: Durant relied heavily on Westbrook to create for him early in his career. I think that’s illustrated simply in the fact that Durant’s points were mostly assisted through 2008-2011. In 2011, 62.4 percent of Durant’s points were assisted. Two seasons ago, that number was 48.1 percent. Last season, that number fell to 50.8 percent. (Aside: Why did it come back up a little last season? Because James Harden was gone and the Thunder weren’t trading turns in isolation anymore. Anyway.) But Durant can get more for himself now, and it’s freed up his own game, as well as Westbrook’s.

Back to Ziller:

So in a properly Westbrookian example, consider the No. 2 and No. 4 scorer for the Thunder last season: Russ and Serge Ibaka. Westbrook was, when we checked in 2011, the No. 1 creator in the NBA. I didn’t run the whole league this time around, but I suspect it to remain true: he created about 25 shots per 36 minutes last season. (Check the old post, linked above, for methodology, warnings and caveats about why we have to estimate a couple of inputs.) Westbrook averaged about 29 total shots and assists per 36 minutes — a huge majority of those were created by himself.

Ibaka, meanwhile, isn’t much of a creator, despite scoring 13 points per game. He created an estimated four shots per 36 minutes while using about 12. The majority of Ibaka’s shots are created by someone else. (Westbrook, usually.) Here’s what the chart looks like for Oklahoma City last season, including everyone who played at least 800 minutes. Note that instead of representing Creation Ratio as [created shots / uncreated shots], we’re using the percentage-based [created shots / {created shots + uncreated shots}].

About 83 percent of Westbrook’s total shots are created by … Westbrook. Ibaka’s creation ratio is 32 percent, the lowest on the team. Also note that Durant, though more likely to hunt his own game than he was in the past, has a creation ratio of 61 percent. He depends on Westbrook’s passing, whether he likes it or not. (I trust that he likes it.)

If I did a power rankings of Unguardable Players, Westbrook’s a lock for the top five. When his jumper is dropping, there’s really no good way to stop him. He’s essentially LeBron James, but smaller, crazier and with a more consistent mid-range shot. I think that’s often the inner battle Westbrook has been trying to conquer. He can get his own look basically any time he wants it. And most of them are decent. One false step, one hesitation move and he’s at the free throw line extended with a pretty clean look. He can create his own shot without much issue. For Westbrook, it’s been more about the shots he creates for others.

Last season, Westbrook did a better job than ever, just based on the raw statistics, of creating good looks for teammates. Durant had his 50-40-90 year, Ibaka 57 percent from the floor, Kevin Martin’s efficiency numbers were high and the Thunder as a team enjoyed their best offensive season yet. Last season, Westbrook averaged 3.1 assists per game on baskets leading to a shot at the rim, up from 2.2 the season before. So to build on what Ziller’s saying, let me add this brilliant observation: It’s really good to make passes to open people at the rim.

Back to Ziller:

Now, why does any of this matter? Studies have indicated that assisted shots are more likely to be converted than unassisted shots, and the difference may be huge. That swings both ways for creators: creating shots for teammates means those teammates will shoot more efficiently, but creating a bunch of shots for themselves reduces the likely conversion rate.

But an assist is not always there. For the Thunder, is it better, lacking other options, for Westbrook or Durant to create a shot for themselves than to let Ibaka or Kendrick Perkins do it? By looking closely at creation rates and field goal percentage, we can start to figure out some of those answers.

The 2013 playoffs provided one big clue when Westbrook went down with an injury. Ibaka and Kevin Martin (another taker) suddenly became a lot more responsible for hunting their own shots … and their efficiency tanked completely. Ibaka shot .573 in the regular season as a user, and .437 in the playoffs as a creator. (It’s not as clean as it looks, because one of those playoff series was against Memphis, a top defense. But the numbers were that dramatic in the first round against Houston’s sub-par defense as well.)

Again, the sample size is tiny and comparing regular season to postseason is cloudy, but there’s no denying the fact that production across the board dropped for the Thunder without Westbrook. Serge Ibaka was far less effective. Durant’s efficiency dipped. Kevin Martin, while scoring more, scored far less efficiently. The only guy that exceeded his regular season self was Reggie Jackson, and that’s just because he was getting an opportunity. Even Kendrick Perkins was greatly impacted by not having Westbrook, mostly because his inability as anything resembling an offensive basketball player was exposed.

(Sidebar: I’m not so much of a lunatic that I’m going to sit here and try and convince you the Thunder are better without James Harden, but in terms of offensive distribution, shot creation and who has the ball, in basketball, two is sometimes better than three. As a creator, Westbrook might be unmatched. So don’t you want the ball in his hands a whole lot? And when not in his, in the next best creator’s hands in Durant? Again, With Harden >>> Without Harden, but I don’t think it was coincidental that the Thunder had so much offensive success last season with a team centered around Westbrook and Durant.)

Let me repeat an earlier point: Unlike other teams, the Thunder don’t have an offensive structure designed to create looks, but rather rely on individual excellence for it. Hard to argue with the results. Sixty wins, the No. 2 offense, blah blah blah. But, and it’s a big but, good shots, and therefore, the offense, are contingent on a pretty obvious factor:

That the Thunder need Westbrook. That they missed him.