Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

Advance stats don't like Westbrook and neither does most of the forum or fan base.

I commend your fandom, though.

You do stick with your positions.

 

It's all good..I'm still going down with the ship every season regardless.

I can't help but laugh...as terrible as Westbrook has been according to some, somehow whatever team he's been on, has found a way to be just as good or better than ours that season, except the bubble year. Maybe our hex rubbed off on him. LOL.
We'll bounce back and go get em next year. I hope.

 

funny how you think defense doesn't matter when they were one of the best defensive teams in 2020 and this year they are one of the worst. notice a difference? guess who the #1 defensive team this season is. it's the suns who are 63-16. but hey, defense doesn't matter

last season's team was 22-7 at one point before AD and lebron got hurt and both missed significant time together. that wasn't the case this season where lebron played in most of the games AD missed and surprise, the team still lost. the problem is how flawed the roster is. even if lebron and AD play every game, this team still probably only finished as high as 7th or 8th. why? because they can't play defense

 

The fact the Lakers went from being blown out against everyone to actually looking like playoff team before the injuries hit Lebron again is definite sign the defense argument wins. The different was they added some size and athleticism between Stan/Gabriel/Reaves

Adding Stan and Gabriel really improved the defense and just the overall athleticism/size of the team. Yes it is more than defense but the factors here are still directly related to it: the bubble team was huge/athletic and had good defenders. This team was small/unathletic with poor defenders - almost a natural experiment lol. When they add Stan than Gabriel the team again became watchable

 

Ok brother...let me tell you why. The Lakers won a chip because James and Davis were both playing like top 5 players in the NBA. That was the main reason, no other team had that combination. Secondly, we happened to have matchups that favored us. Every team we played besides Denver, preferred to play small ball. That worked perfectly for us, because we were unique in that we could play small ball and still put size and length on the court. It wasn't because our defense was this or that IMO. It was a good attribute to have, but it wasn't critical. FWIW the top 5 Defense RTG teams that season was Toronto, Milwaukee, Lakers, Boston and Clippers. Miami was ranked 12th. They still got to the Finals. The Nuggets got to the conference finals ranked 16th. Yeah the Suns had the top ranked defense in the playoffs last year, worked great until they finally ran into a healthy team. Then all of a sudden they couldn't get stops. They won't win a chip this season either.

Your next point contradicts itself. You talk about the record before AD got hurt, ok..the defense was still top 3 in the NBA afterwards, but our record went south. Maybe a healthy AD and Lebron means more than a defensive rating? Furthermore if we couldn't win games with a great defense without the big two last season. How did you reasonably expect this season to be better, if we only played better defense? James and Davis have missed more games this season!

No..I think it's simple..a healthy Lebron and AD makes us a title contender. The fringe results of that is an added plus, it's never more important than the main thing.

Hell no..I totally disagree...a healthy Lebron and AD aren't finishing 7th or 8th. That's crazy, a healthy Lebron and AD are top 5 in the game man. We already saw how that worked in the bubble. We had the best record in the NBA before Covid hit too.

 

yep. same injury problems last year, much better team. difference: last year we played defense and 1/3 of our cap wasn't devoted to a mini-mle level player.

 

Point taken on Stan, Austin and Gabriel. I agree that they were better fits than Baze, Ariza, and Tucker. Melo and Monk too on the defensive end. The problem is, without the big two, we couldn't score enough. Defensive players tend to be avg to poor on offense. Gotta have both. Another solid point about size and length in general, that was a factor in us going 5,5,5 and 6 in the bubble. I'm not conceding that the defensive argument wins, we still didn't win without our two best players. To me that remains the single biggest factor. Run it back with those three kids playing, plus healthy stars, and a few additions (young big!!) And we are in business..with Westbrook-the topic of conversation in this thread.

 

Better team how? We finished in the play in game and out in the 1st rd. What was so great about that? No..it's not the same either, James and Davis missed more games and the MLE signing that would have kept Avery on the bench, didn't play in one single game. Similar...not the same.

For the 50th time..you know our cap situation going into free agency. Who do you think we were going to sign? It was Dennis or Buddy Hield. Same results without James and Davis. Throw in Caruso if you like. Wouldn't have made a difference.

 

you have further questions? better team last year. by a mile. same injury problems. same coach.

 

I think if we didn't start the season with 1/3 of our roster completely unplayable + the addition of Hield and keeping Caruso we would be at 7 or 8 seed right now with the AD/Lebron injuries.

 

That’s the biggest negative impact he has made: on defense. We not only lost THREE solid defenders by trading for him, we added one who by the eye test and statistically, is one of the worst.
People who only point out his sometimes very good offensive stats aren’t being true to the game.

 

Agh no sir..first of all Lebron and AD have missed more games this season than last. Factor in that, last year's record would have been worse. Secondly Nunn has missed the entire season, let's subtract a Kuz, KCP or Schroeder for an entire season to go along with no Lebron or AD. Totally different picture.

 

Explain again exactly how Westbrook's defense was more at fault than the other players on this team besides the young kids that played late. On topic, Dennis was considered a top defensive PG last season, how did it help? Trez was terrible on defense, that's why Vogel didn't play him. What 3 are you talking about? Kuz couldn't guard a park car. Here or in Washington right now.

 

LOL...I'm with all the smoke today...bring it.

I'm not challenging anyone's Fandom. I'm just as frustrated with sucking yet again. I just have a difference of opinion as to why in this particular campaign.

 

Lebron played in 45/72 games and AD played in 36/72 last year. This year they are currently at 56 and 40 out of 82. LeBron has already played in more games this year than he did last year and if AD plays in 1 more game he will have played in 50% of the games just like last season.

This year we have only been with out both in the same game 2 times (losing both), while last year both missed significant time including 16 games at the same time. The team managed to go 8-10 with out Lebron, 19-17 without AD, and 6-10 without BOTH. This year we are 6-17 without Lebron, 14-25 without AD, and 0-2 with neither. In what world can you compare both years and think the teams are similar?

You HAVE to be able to see that this years supporting cast is worse. And it stems from acquiring your boy Westbrook.

 

This makes the FO letting go of Caruso even worse in retrospect (and it was bad even at the time). They got rid of an elite defender who also worked extremely well with Lebron on offense. Plus they lost a lot of the goodwill with the fanbase.

 

Because last year..Kuz,KCP or Dennis didn't miss the entire season to go along with that. Like Nunn..Last season Lebron and AD played in more games together too. I'm still very much in this world saying that these aren't the same situations. I'm not going to go into flipping an entire roster..I'll just stick to what I posted already.

 

AD and Lebron were 19-8 together last year while they are 11-11 this year. A full 5 more games played last year. I doubt Nunn is the difference between a 41 win pace and a 58 win pace but believe that if you want.

 

The Goodwill part, he was a popular player. If you watched the Bucks/Bulls game last night you could understand why 35 million for Alex wasn't a great idea. If you don't trade for Westbrook, the cap situation wasn't going to be that huge of a difference. We still had to sign a PG. Dennis wanted 20 plus, if we kept the three guys we traded, that 20 million was still going to hit. We would have been in a similar situation. He would still be in Chicago.

 

Again most of that record came before AD got hurt last season. I will say that I was very high on Nunn. Again did any other key player from last season miss the entire season? It does make a difference, simply imagine any of the guys I mentioned taking an o' Fer for the season. You are saying it means nothing?
I mean you point to the record without both, do you think it would be the same without one of those 3?