Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

If you say you should separate LeBron and Russ why the hell you want Russ? You want to pay 47mil for a guy who can't play in the 4th? That can't close games? Or even pay 10?15?20? Plus, in the playoffs the pace goes down dramatically, so I really don't see what you see of value from him

Russell Westbrook has a plus-minus of -48 in the fourth quarter this season.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/westbrook-plus-minus-4th-quarter-this-season

Also, he just got better recently where he got 6 out of 8 games since Xmas with a positive +/-. Before that he had 6 out of 17 (can't see more data)
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/westbrook-plus-minus-last-5-minutes

+/- isn't everything, but then you see he had -211 last year. And guys like Caruso and Reaves are consistently in the positive bracket. That shows you something. I prefer that than empty rebounds (the guy is unable to BOX OUT) and stat padding like he does, damaging the team for personal gain:


So please avoid creating a narrative that is only bad for the franchise and a blatant lie.
We will be a better team after we trade him, period.

 

I have my doubts on whether AD's body will be able to hold up as the focus on offense. He has a huge responsibility defensively so it might be best for him to take a backseat on O so that he can stay healthy. The Lakers have displayed a top tier offense since he has been out.

 

Bunch of blah, blah man.we had nothing to do with his contract, he signed that before he got here. I already said that he wasn't a 47 million dollar player.

Plus Minus depends on who's on the court with you when you play too. Now since you want to rant about some stats...

Westbrook has 111 career playoff games. 55-56 is the won loss record. 25/8/7 are his playoff avgs. That is very far from some kind of scrub dude, whether you like his game or not. This idea that the guy can't be effective in the playoffs is ridiculous.

Now.. team success in the playoffs depends on the TEAM. The last two times the dude has been in the playoffs can't be blamed on him. Washington was a terrible team period, and only got to the playoffs because of Westbrook. Houston had the misfortune of starting 5 guys 6'7 and under, and ran into the Lakers in the 2nd rd. If you seriously thought that they had a snowballs chance in hell, at winning that series, I question your hoop knowledge.

Back to my Lakers..if my best two players had played in more than 21 games together last season, we'd have a better assessment of what the Westbrook impact would have been. The 27 they played together in the previous season didn't bode well for us either. Hurt and hobbled, they were still by far the best players we had against Phoenix.

Like I said, 41 games are left in this campaign. You can keep hating on this guy all you want, we shall most definitely see how it all plays out won't we?

This discussion will be continued...

 

For the regular season run perhaps..AD needs to be the focus in the playoffs though, or its over early IMO. He..not Lebron, is the advantage we'd have in any series IMO. The injuries might just be what it is with Anthony. Hopefully not, we got a brief glimpse of the MVP caliber guy I expected to see moving forward after the bubble. I hope that isn't all we get.

 

I really liked Russ’ play in the recent game with Bryant and Lebron on the floor. Both of them were finding TB at will. I think Russ finished with 22 points and 15 rebounds and settled us down in the 4th.

I think that’s the way you play him, as a primary ball handler in a really deep PnR with AD or TB. Lebron as the secondary action as he was getting easy drives when the defence collapsed. TB was getting easy looks at the rim via Russ and when the team doubled TB, Russ had an easy drive to the basket.

It might not work in the playoffs but we can just play Russ 20mins as a backup. I know it’s not a good use of 47m but that’s nothing new. Make the best of what you can.

 

i think i asked weeks ago--maybe when AD was still healthy--why we didn't run pick and roll with lebron as the outlet more often.

i think people are right that good defenses will make us pay in crunch time, and there's not really a scheme out of it.

my thoughts on russ are mostly about going forward, though. will he stay for 2/30? if he's going to walk anyway, you gotta rip the bandaid off and get value. i hope the FO is having these conversations with him right now.

 

I think you have to tag team it with them. No way you can run AD into the ground on both ends with a stress injury in his foot. That's asking it to fracture and then he's out for the entirety of next year. I think it's best AD takes the lead on Defensive and Lebron on offensive as long as he's moving like this. During the championship they both averaged over 27 points on great efficiency and Lebron took home the finals MVP so it's not unprecedented for him to lead an offense.

 

i'm incredibly nervous about him playing with a loose bone spur in his foot, tbh.

anyway, can't the answer just be to play him shorter minutes and strategically rest him (like even if he's not sore)?

lebron's clearly doing ok running offense without AD, so maybe the answer on offense is to have AD and russ out there together more often just running a spread pick and roll when lebron's not in. when lebron's in; it's lebron time.

 

Yes but Ham and Davis himself have to be disciplined with the minutes and rest. Can't run him out there for 29 minutes straight like against the C Bags. Also more time with Russ would be good as Russ is great at spoon feeding him easy buckets.

Another key thing is not getting stagnate trying to force feed him the ball against a packed paint. The offense has really taken off without him and I suspect it's because guys no longer have to worry about force feeding him since he's "the guy" on offense now. Now everyone is just playing their games.

 

This is all Bryant and lesser extent Schroeder - It's amazing how much Bryant has filled the AD role of offense. The fact he can shoot and also pin down guy for layups has made it very difficult to guard the Laker playmakers

 

Our best player tonight. I can count on one hand how many times I've said that during his Laker tenure. One of the only Lakers to actually hit his 3s. Only 3 TOs. Good energy. Best part of his game was the defense and denial against Luka.

 

Only reason we were in this game tonight.

 

If we hit 3s at any reasonable percentage, we win this game, w/o any OT. Our starters were 1 for 18 from 3.

Russ was our best player. I've been as harshly critical as anyone about him, but mad props to Russ for keeping us in this game against the current #4 seed in the West. If Lebron doesn't have a lousy game, we win this. If AD were back, we win this.

I'm tempted to say, if only AR were back, we win this one. Last year at this time, the sheer utter dismality (<---a word I just now coined: feel free to use it yerself!) was setting in. This team, with a similar record as last year's at this time, is actually much better than the record indicates...in my opinion.

As much as it sucks to lose a 2nd straight against a West team over .500, we played both DEN and DAL pretty well, considering. Due to injuries, we had to start Max Christie and JTA, and we still gave one of the best teams in the West a rough time. This game, albeit a Loss, was a really great NBA game. But gawd, it sucks to lose a 2 OT game at home...

O! To be healthy! That? We ain't. And so we still stare up at .500

 

honestly it seemed like he was just trying to rough luka up as the game went on. not sure it's a great strategy, as luka's a big dude who's had this attempted on him since he was like, 14. in any case, it didn't rattle him.

russ played a really good game, though. couple times when they played him in the paint, he did what i've been hoping and drove anyway, just getting to the middle and forcing a collapse. he mixed in a couple threes to keep them honest, and they went down, which was nice.

i really like when we put him on a high usage player on defense. he just does so much better on the ball, especially against larger guys.

 

it's not a valid concept for anyone. kawhi's tried it and gotten clowned. i'm just saying what it looked like. it's possible he was just trying to get under his skin, which is a better strategy, though still not super successful.

i actually thought lebron trying to find ways to go at him defensively was the better idea. nothing can be done with him on offense, so try to tire him out defensively,.

 

Russ had a few clutch shots. But I knew the game was over when the team was gassed in 2OT, he got the ball at the 3 point line completely open, hesitated to shoot, tried to attack, and then missed a layup. Pretty sure there were similar sequences in the OT losses to Philly and Boston.

On the Luka flagrant (and then there was a play a few minutes later after a made basket where Russ similarly crashed into Luka, but luckily got a no-call), I really don’t think Russ was trying anything malicious or even to “rough up” Luka.

They were definitely baffling plays, but I chalk it up to Russ being one of the primary defensive assignments on Luka. And specifically it seems he was told to cover him and prevent him from even getting the ball. So I think his mindset was just “I need to cover Luka ASAP”. And since he’s relatively simple-minded defensively and clumsy, he instinctively goes in full speed. He just didn’t have the body control or mental capacity to avoid contact. Bull in a china shop.

 

He anticipated Luka moving towards him and went for the steal. Luka faked that inside move and drew the foul..that was a BS flagrant call, considering the amount of contact the refs allowed all game. Luka missed both FT and they missed a jumper, it didn't impact the outcome of that game at all. We should have rode the hot hand and let Russ attack the paint and played off of his action, instead of Lebron pounding the rock looking for a jumper.

Folks keep complaining about Hamm's playcalls at the end of games. IDK...if Lebron touches the ball, he's doing whatever he wants IMO. He plays it the exact same way with 3 different HC and a boatload of different teammates since he's been here. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's working less lately.