Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

Lots of great points here. I don’t get the Russ hate. He isn’t a perfect player by any means, but he plays hard, his shot selection has been great recently, he is looking after the ball better, attacking the rim really well, defending with effort, settling to be the third wheel with no issues, creating a ton of points for team mates and has been super clutch.

But he has one bad shooting night - where he took 17 of his 20 shots at the rim (where he is finishing about 65% at) and misses one rotation to patty mills and the pitchforks come out like he is the whole problem.

To me that’s just hating a player and not rooted in fact.

 

If only Russ cared about his impact metrics as much as his box score.

 

Eye test is painful.
He makes so many bad decisions in game. The hustle is there, just last game he won a few off rebs that gave us extra shots, but then he misses good shots, forces bad ones and turns over the ball way too often. Sometimes is not a direct turnover, but he puts the teammate in a bad position.
He also makes very good reads and passes but I don't think it's worth it. He is just a plain case of high risk, medium reward.

Better teams usually rely on a more cerebral PG, you can't have one who is constantly turning the ball over, you won't win chips.

But we got him and he isn't going anywhere this season.
So let's see if we can get the best out of him,he is a very special player that in the right position may be a factor in a winning team

 

i think the biggest issue is that his (clear and undeniable, imo) uptick in play hasn't led to a better team product. imo, the biggest knock on russ has been that he can get his and you won't be better for it. i'd rather him go 4-16 and we win games.

but it seems like most combinations on the floor involving russ lead to deficits. this is also fairly undeniable at this point.

 

I’m sorry, again, the “hate” label is lazy and just ignorant.
We are upset based on not only the eye test, but the plain facts regarding his play.
When a player makes an entire third of your team’s entire cap, there are expectations.
There are those on this site who refuse to accept the fact that he’s not helping the team win. That’s your prerogative. Just stop labeling us as “haters” for pointing out what we are witnessing occur on the court.
He’s not the only problem with this team, but he is a big one of them.

 

Yes he did. A “few games” isn’t good enough for a player expected to carry a big load when either LeBron or AD is out. That’s fine for a guy who makes $10 mill per season and doesn’t have high expectations placed on him.

 

Even the Cranjiss stats don't take into account what is the efficiency of the team with him. He was awful in the first part of the season and he's not as awful now as similar to his time in Houston he just stops taking 3s and concentrates to getting to the hoop.

What it doesn't take into account is that for all his efforts on being all in it's only on offense. He's not a good defensive player either on the ball or off the ball. Then on offense he's more efficient but his lack of ability to shoot the ball makes it harder for his teammates. He's basically a league average PG IMO if you take all the good and the bad and put it together

 

If I could talk to LeGM, I would, but he’s not returning my calls at the moment.

 

Of the 67 point guards in RAPTOR WAR, Russ is currently 66th. Steph, Trae, and Jrue are the top 3.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

 

All that means is there is room for improvement

 

His blind supporters don’t like facts! How dare you!

 

His uptick helped a 7-3 run over a 10 game period and we were looking good. Then Lebron came back and we looked average - Russ included - before covid blew us up totally.

 

Well this is an awkward an inconvenient truth

 

Cute, but by all metrics Westbrook is a huge net negative

 

right. i'm not sure we can cherrypick the 1/3 of the season we like. russ has gotten better offensively as the year has worn on and has stayed bad on defense. as pioneer indicated above: all told, we're paying 44 million for a league average pg. so far, it's been the answer to "what's worse than paying schroder 20 million per?"

 

ouch, why you gotta put it like that?

 

i respect svtzr's opinion on this and everything; i just can't agree that russ has been good for us so far. and i'm worried that his defensive issues won't go away. that part's been really disappointing. i was hoping with one last shot at a ring in sight, he'd find the will to be a good defensive presence.