Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

This is going to be fun

 

If only he took the summer to work, non-stop, on his damn 3 point shot. Just get to like 35% and we are golden.

 

Rondo and J Kidd can do it, so can Russ

 

they went to basically set shots, right (maybe rondo's always was)?

and both didn't really go to it until their athleticism was all the way gone (i.e., they were forced into it).

i'm not holding my breath on russ becoming a catch and shoot guy. and i'm not sure we need him to be, anyway.

 

Russ gonna turn into Steph once he becomes a stand still shooter

 

Westbrook is just an odd shooter.

He spent 9 seasons as a 80%+ free throw shooter and over the last four years he has been between 65-75%. He took a hit to his percentages when they changed the rule to how far you can travel from the key in between attempts.

He was an elite midrange shooter early in his career, then after the Beverley incident he fell off. But sporadically he has an elite season like his MVP season or the year he spent in Houston.

He has been a terrible shooter from 3 his whole career and yet the one year he hit them at a league average, his scoring ballooned past 30. And then last year he shot 10% of his shots from the corner 3 and hit that at 43%.

Not sure if he will ever be a good shooter as he relies on his lift so much, but maybe he can have a 75% season from the FT, a decent percentage from midrange and shoot league average from the corner 3. If he does that, we'll be golden!

 

The good thing with this team is that Russ doesn't need to shoot. In other teams he had too, but with this roster he can do everything else (where he is great) and shoot whenever he is open.
I think he can thrive with this team

 

If Russ only shoots corner 3's at the percentage he did last year (43%), we'd probably be top 5. So reason's to be optimistic!

 

what's the actual % difference between 13th and 21st, though? like 2%?

the real test is what opposing defenses do. defenses just left kuz last year. he shot a respectable percentage, but it wasn't enough to stretch the defense. if teams take their chances on ellington and bazemore and ariza, and they shoot similarly, we haven't gained much.

given what we've given up defensively, i want to see a pretty dramatic increase in three point accuracy or opposing defenses to respect the line more.

my guess is teams open the season giving our role players open jumpers again and hope the curse is real.

 

I'm very curious to see how this team performs defensively. I think we'll come out of the gate hot and get off to a 20-4 run or something along those lines before taking the foot off the pedal a little bit.

This will come off the back of a surprisingly good defensive identity. I've come around to your suggestions of starting Gasol. I think the remaining 4 will be Russ, AD, Lebron and Bazemore. That starting unit has a lot of size, 2 elite defenders in AD and Gasol, Russ and Lebron splitting play making duties means they'll have more energy on D, and Bazemore should look a ton better with AD and Gasol behind him.

From the bench we'll still have Nunn, THT, Ariza and Dwight as good to great defenders. Sure Carmelo is more useless on defence than a sieve with a hole in it - but I'm not sure that other teams have that much more defensive firepower than us off the bench anyway.

As for our three point improvement, I fear the regular season starting unit still won't be great. If AD is prepared to play at C exclusively, then we can start Ellington at the 2 and Baze at the 3. But if AD won't start at the 5, we'll still have Nunn, Ellington, Monk, Ariza and Carmelo all eager to shoot from the bench. So it comes down to the coaching staff putting together good performing units over 48 mins.

 

i think vogel's going to have to earn his money to get the defense near the top of the league again. maybe i'm overrating caruso and kcp, but i just felt like they really helped us with their ability guard either backcourt position and sniff out steals, loose balls, deflections. i guess russ gets some steals, but he's never been as good defensively as athletic profile and motor would suggest. and replacing kuz's minutes with melo might be problematic on defense (kuz wasn't great, but melo's really bad).

i suppose if the leaders really commit to team defense, there's a chance we don't notice those guys are gone, though.

 

Interesting to see if the #1 defense was more about the personnel or Vogel's system this upcoming season.

 

or if he can tweak system to personnel. clearly, he's done that a bit, and i wonder if some of that is why the offense isn't as strong as people wish.

i remember when avery johnson took over for don nelson in dallas, he really focused on defense. and they improved. but i remember seeing someone explain that the defensive philosophy--specifically how it influenced changing ends in either direction--almost necessarily made the offense less creative.

feel like phil jackson had some of this in the triangle, right? or am i misremembering? something about how offensive floor balance being rigidly maintained for defensive purposes? maybe that wasn't phil, but it was definitely the case in dallas back then. in other words, some creative things people do for offense tend to leave teams exposed to transition opportunities.

i'm rambling now. yes, i'm curious to see if we'll still be as good on defense.

 

I am not sure it's a question really. We've been #1 or #2 in defense the entire season, with crazy rotations and people getting injured left and right.