Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

Yes, that in a nutshell was what I expressed 340 pages ago. Didn't make sense then, doesn't make sense now.

 

Yeah Russ looks better if its him + Lebron or him + AD. When all three are playing his play quality drops significantly. His game isn't suited to being a 3rd option.

 

Do you think that will change with more playing time? And if no, why not? I feel like we said him and Lebron couldn’t play together a little while ago.

Second question, do you think we can stagger them enough to be successful anyway?

 

Shocking! I can’t believe that mine eyes have been deceiving me all along! So all of the things we’ve been complaining about for a season and a half are based in reality?!
Hmmmmmmm….

 

He needs to be traded. +8.3 with LeBron and Russ together looks good until you look at all of the two-player combinations with LeBron. LeBron is just amazing. Russ has been better this year, but at the end of the day he’s still a $47 million dollar player that actively conflicts with our best players. That’s not tenable. Scoring off the bench is fun, but ultimately not that valuable if you’re trying to win games. Guys like Jordan Poole, Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams have been getting buckets for decades only to get played off the floor in important games. I understand not wanting to use the 2027 and 2029 picks just to get rid of Russ, but he should not be brought back next year.

 

I'm skeptical because he won't have enough usage. In every situation he's been at worst the 2nd option with KD, George, Harden, Beal. Here when Lebron and AD are on the court, he finds himself in the corner spacing.

Staggering could help but AD and Lebron are expected to play so many minutes it'll be tough on Russ. At the end of games in crunch time, I've never seen the 3 of them look good together so he might need to be on the bench and I can't imagine him being happy.

 

Great points. It’s a coaching conundrum for sure. From a purely staggering point of view, Lebron is going to play 38 mins in the playoffs as will AD. And you imagine at least 8 of those there will only be one of them on the floor. So that’s roughly 18 mins of Russ playing with only one each.

As you said the big thing comes in closing, can Russ effectively close? With AD out, Russ was our best closer alongside Lebron. I don’t have the answers obviously.

I saw some interesting plays last game though with Max and Rui in opposite corners and there was 3 way action between Russ, Lebron and AD through the middle.

I wonder if we can design plays to get all 3 of them into the game, or can we utilise the Bryant / Russ pnr play (except with AD) that had Lebron attacking on a cut that was so effective? Lebron catching the ball with momentum is impossible to stop, he’s already passed his defender with a head of steam.

At the very least a play like that is going to collapse the defence, if we had 2 snipers playing we could punish the help defence. That’s why getting another 40% shooter for one of Walker or Bev is enticing to me.

 

Even if Russ is purely a regular season player that gets our bench going, I see value in that for 15-20m. (That’s around 10% of a 170m salary roster and great value in my opinion)

 

I am telling you... there is some neurological damage in his brain or some other path to his hands. I have never seen another NBA player having literally no control of his palms in the same way Russ doesn't have. Shaq had more.

I mean... his shots, all of them, look different each and every time. No muscle memory and no ability to control the muscles.

Mindbottling.

 

Lol..more Russ plus minus bs. That stat is always dependent on who else is on the court.

Lebron, AD and Russ have played 20 games together this season. 9-11 is the record, after a 2-9 start they are 7-2. We wouldn't have played 500 ball without AD, if it wasn't for Westbrook either.

Hopefully we'll have some good health moving forward and actually get to see what's what.

 

The regular season bench scorer guy is not valuable. We just saw the Warriors have to bench Jordan Poole for Gary Payton II and Otto Porter II in the Finals. If our goal is to actually make the playoffs and win some games the bench scorer guy is like 10th on our priority list.

 

Westbrook is not an off the bench scorer. His role is to push pace and facilitate its not the same thing. He is still 8th in the League in assists coming off the bench. Those guys weren't in the top of the league in anything.

 

it’s been a season and a half, I think in total they’ve played 40ish games together now after two training camps and they’re under .500 in those games. It’s abundantly clear watching the games that this is suboptimal. We don’t need any more time to assess.

 

Naw..it doesn't work like that..the injuries are what they are...they played in 21 games last season. It's abundantly clear that they haven't played much together at all. The season is 82 games long.

 

They haven’t played much at all. I agree with Slick on that. And all 3 tandems are good, it’s just figuring out how to play as a trio.

Russ’ play making gets undervalued a lot.

 

Good luck trying to convince Slick. It’s a fool’s errand.
Russ has proven, and will continue to prove that he’s a terrible fit alongside LeBron. The facts are all there. Some people choose fantasy.

 

Yup..Like a 20 game sample is supposed to be definitive. Luckily the people that actually run the team, think that is some total BS too.