|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Junior Member
Posted 11 April 2013 - 01:15 PM
Westbrick is athletic and never miss a game. Has good shooting % (43) but not great. His points are high due to insane amount of shots.
His ego and bone headed decision make him an average PG. He would become so so if you took away his shots.
I don't understand why Durant didn't shoot more. I truly believe Westbrick is the reason they haven't won the championship yet.
Veteran
Posted 11 April 2013 - 01:41 PM
I didn't mean you, I just mean people. There are people here and people outside of here who think Westbrook is overrated and overcompensate for that by underrating him. Guys like Steven are a dime a dozen.
Veteran
Posted 11 April 2013 - 02:39 PM
You want to use records as a measuring stick for individual greatness and you're ranking Lilliard ahead of Westbrook. Hmm...
Veteran
Posted 11 April 2013 - 05:22 PM
Veteran
Posted 11 April 2013 - 07:31 PM
You guys are clearly ignoring the most obvious point. KD doesn't take bad shots. Durant will get the ball and then when he's doubled or the guy plays good defense he passes back out with not a lot of time on the shot clock. Westbrook then takes an ill-advised shot. KD is SUPER protective of his 50/40/90 status. He doesn't take buzzer beating half court shots for that reason. To put all the blame on Westbrook is something Skip would do. Let's examine all sides to this issue.
Why so Serious? 
glad you're on board, but I been on this boat since it left
Posted 11 April 2013 - 07:48 PM
You guys are clearly ignoring the most obvious point. KD doesn't take bad shots. Durant will get the ball and then when he's doubled or the guy plays good defense he passes back out with not a lot of time on the shot clock. Westbrook then takes an ill-advised shot. KD is SUPER protective of his 50/40/90 status. He doesn't take buzzer beating half court shots for that reason. To put all the blame on Westbrook is something Skip would do. Let's examine all sides to this issue.
I agree KD takes less bad shots than westbrick, but I have seen KD take his share of low time on the shot clock shots. sure westbrick shoots more of them, but he shoots more period. westbrick biggest flaw to me is he wants to be the man aka the hero and sometimes he puts that in front of what best for the team. that's basketball IQ issues.
you can only warn a man that the bridge is out.....if he keeps driving he's on his own 
Junior Member
Posted 12 April 2013 - 02:27 AM
I see nothing wrong with either argument on Westbrook, but I check the OKC winning percent and it's .731 percent this year. This year is better than the .712 percent last year with Harden and also better than the .671 from 2010 and 2011. Is OkC better this year than last year. I can't tell because of some the things Westbrook does. The trade has been good for both teams if we are going by winning and losing. This is only my two cents.
Advanced Member
Posted 12 April 2013 - 05:37 AM
I see nothing wrong with either argument on Westbrook, but I check the OKC winning percent and it's .731 percent this year. This year is better than the .712 percent last year with Harden and also better than the .671 from 2010 and 2011. Is OkC better this year than last year. I can't tell because of some the things Westbrook does. The trade has been good for both teams if we are going by winning and losing. This is only my two cents.
This is a horrible way to go about it lol. Not to sound rude, but I am surprised someone upped it one. Everyone knew OKC could get better this yr because KD and Westbrook got better. I usually respect most opinions on here because it can go both ways, but let me repeat this: OKC GOT WORSE (for now) FROM TRADING HARDEN THAN THEY WOULD HAVE IF THEY DID NOT.
Not commenting on whether the deal was necessary or not or the trade was right or not, the team itself GOT WORSE AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME. All they got were future prospects (which helps them in the future, not now) and KMart, who is in no way a better player than Harden. OKC doing better is because they have gotten better -- KD and Westbrook and Ibaka have all stepped it up. They've grown another yr. If they had Harden, they would be even deadlier.
Again, please don't confuse this with whether the trade was good, or if they had to do it, or if it helps them in the future, or how KMart helps fit in the role they need, etc. It is an even worse argument than saying trading 2Pat alone made our Rockets team better THIS YEAR. It did not (this argument is actually a bit weaker because it at least freed up minutes for our younger prospects to play, but even then, none have been so amazing to have supplanted what 2Pat gave us now either on offense or more importantly on defense).
Advanced Member
Posted 14 April 2013 - 05:15 PM
Actually, from what Harden seemed to be willing to do (see PKM's post) and Harden's own comments, he would have been more than happy to play the 6th man role on that team. And I think they absolutely need a player who can be a playmaker off the bench. It would make them one of (if not THE) deadliest benches in the nba. Harden did poorly in parts of the playoffs, but he was only what, 22? 23?
First, I think Harden would be able to bring more defense as the 6th man since his energy is conserved and he wouldn't need to put up 26 a night or something. Second, Perkins is the solution then? Trading Harden in order to keep Perkins just sounds perverse when I say it out loud lol.
http://www.grantland...harden-disaster
Just stumbled into this....according to Simmons, he wasn't all that happy about the whole situation
Advanced Member
Posted 14 April 2013 - 05:21 PM
I remember reading that from awhile back too, but within that same article, it says:
Quick tangent: Before expansion diluted the league in the 1990s, many of the NBA's greatest teams were built around two signature stars, then a third (and more underrated) high-caliber player who sacrificed numbers while maintaining a memorable level of clutchness. Everyone points to Manu Ginobili as a recent example, but every classic 1980s juggernaut featured that guy, whether it was James Worthy, Jamaal Wilkes, Dennis Johnson, Joe Dumars or Andrew Toney. Going back to Bill Russell's era, the all-time best example was Sam Jones (as I wrote about three weeks ago). Had Harden moved into the aforementioned group while being paid accordingly, he would have embraced it — he's one of the rare modern athletes who doesn't care about being The Man, even writing Oklahoma City GM Sam Presti before the 2009 draft and explaining how well he'd blend with Westbrook and Durant.
Isn't that saying the opposite? I also recall some Harden interview quotes where he said he's always been comfortable either being 'the man' or the 6th man off the bench -- that he's good and fine at doing either. He could have just been saying that for purposes of speaking to the media, but what in the article made you feel like Harden wasn't happy (enough) to stick to the 6th man role?
Advanced Member
Posted 14 April 2013 - 10:17 PM
On thing is to be comfortable with being the 6th man your entire career (a la Manu) and another is recognizing a healthy enviroment in which one can thrive in his rookie year, or even in his entire rookie contract. If he (or his agent) kept pushing for more money is because he felt he deserved it, and if he felt he deserved "max" money is because he envisions himself as something much bigger than a 6th man. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just reading between the lines here. Nobody is willing to pay the max to someone who comes off the bench, maybe it was some kind of pushing OKC to move him to the starting lineup.
As stated also in the article, he wanted a fifth year which OKC couldn't offer (because Westbrook and Durant already have one and they couldn't offer another one) and a guarantee that he wouldn't be seemed as a great trading chip (like Rondo's contract: "max" player with a friendlier contract) or that he wouldn't be traded to a crappy team.
All in all, that seems TO ME as he wasn't all that comfortable with what OKC was offering as a whole.
Advanced Member
Posted 14 April 2013 - 11:15 PM
On thing is to be comfortable with being the 6th man your entire career (a la Manu) and another is recognizing a healthy enviroment in which one can thrive in his rookie year, or even in his entire rookie contract. If he (or his agent) kept pushing for more money is because he felt he deserved it, and if he felt he deserved "max" money is because he envisions himself as something much bigger than a 6th man. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just reading between the lines here. Nobody is willing to pay the max to someone who comes off the bench, maybe it was some kind of pushing OKC to move him to the starting lineup.
As stated also in the article, he wanted a fifth year which OKC couldn't offer (because Westbrook and Durant already have one and they couldn't offer another one) and a guarantee that he wouldn't be seemed as a great trading chip (like Rondo's contract: "max" player with a friendlier contract) or that he wouldn't be traded to a crappy team.
All in all, that seems TO ME as he wasn't all that comfortable with what OKC was offering as a whole.
Wait, but that actually contradicts a bunch of things actually stated in the article. I'm reading it differently. Harden didn't really need the max -- Simmons spent quite a bit of the article talking about how it came down to the trade clause AT the $54M price. If Harden was going to take a discount (which he seemed willing to do), he wanted a no trade clause to go along with it so that he couldn't take the discount and then have Presti move him to some other team a yr later. Presti said no to that, and that made Harden much more suspicious.
By negotiating w/ the Thunder instead of other teams, as Simmons noted, Harden was already showing a willingness to take a discount -- otherwise, he knew from the start that OKC could not possibly give him as much money as another team could and would. It never said Harden necessarily wanted a 5th yr; it was proving the point that had he wanted it, he could have chosen to go elsewhere from the start since he knew from the beginning OKC could not physically offer it. Why even negotiate and set a price where he'd agree then in the first place?
Harden indeed did want a no trade clause. He did not want to become the next Rondo after being suckered into taking a discount. I think that is very fair. Either make him take a discount ($54M) and give him his no trade clause, or give him the $60M he's asking for at the 4 yr max, which is already Harden being willing to forego the 5th yr to stay w/ OKC. Presti chose to do neither, so thus, Harden of course was uncomfortable w/ what was left on the table. If Presti gave him one or the other, I think Harden would have been plenty happy staying in the 6th man role (which he himself said in interviews after coming to Houston that he would have been perfectly happy in).
And 'max' money for a bench player is perspective. He'd initially still be costing the organization less than the old Manu would haha.
Advanced Member
Posted 14 April 2013 - 11:22 PM
Well, I get that the priority for him was to stay put in OKC (only place he knew, comfortable and finalist last year, it was the best chance to get a ring as soon as possible), but I think, with all that being said, ultimately he was leaning a bit more towards leaving. If he wanted to stay that bad, he would have signed for 10M a year and that was that, but he asked for more. Of course, that whole "small market" excuse was bs, but....he knew from the beginning that Presti wouldn't bend over, none of them were willing to do that so....the rest is history and we have a beard in Houston right now.
Actually, to come to a middle ground, we both have a point. Harden would have accepted and embraced the whole "keep at that 6th man role", but with conditions that somehow exceeded that status and made impossible for both the franchise and the player to continue in the same path.
Advanced Member
Posted 14 April 2013 - 11:40 PM
Well, I get that the priority for him was to stay put in OKC (only place he knew, comfortable and finalist last year, it was the best chance to get a ring as soon as possible), but I think, with all that being said, ultimately he was leaning a bit more towards leaving. If he wanted to stay that bad, he would have signed for 10M a year and that was that, but he asked for more. Of course, that whole "small market" excuse was bs, but....he knew from the beginning that Presti wouldn't bend over, none of them were willing to do that so....the rest is history and we have a beard in Houston right now.
Actually, to come to a middle ground, we both have a point. Harden would have accepted and embraced the whole "keep at that 6th man role", but with conditions that somehow exceeded that status and made impossible for both the franchise and the player to continue in the same path.
I mean yes, he had to draw the line somewhere as every player does, or else they'd all take the minimum to play for the franchise of their choice haha. But I think that is right; that Harden would have accepted and embraced the 6th man role, a la Ginobili style, if everything had fallen into place. If Presti had agreed to his demands, esp. right away, he would have been very ecstatic. I think Presti's unwillingness to either pay him max OR give him a no trade clause if he took a discount sort of took Harden aback. I think he thought he was valued more, and for all the "we all sacrifice and work like a family" environment the OKC FO had tried to build up over the yrs, it was still a business. When Presti traded him, Harden was shocked and I think somewhat insulted. He then properly set forth to show him the mistake he made 
Advanced Member
Posted 15 April 2013 - 12:16 AM
Let's be honest....he might have felt insulted because he was traded from a contender to one of the supposed worst teams in the league. Then he realized that Houston wasn't as bad as he thought (and helped by winning some games by himself, hehe). If I were him, I'd be insulted to think that Westbrook is more valuable than me, lol.
Veteran
Posted 15 April 2013 - 12:21 AM
Presti must of went with Westbrick for the defense and the higher ceiling.
Advanced Member
Posted 15 April 2013 - 12:49 AM
Let's be honest....he might have felt insulted because he was traded from a contender to one of the supposed worst teams in the league. Then he realized that Houston wasn't as bad as he thought (and helped by winning some games by himself, hehe). If I were him, I'd be insulted to think that Westbrook is more valuable than me, lol.
lmao exactly -- Westbrook being seen as better Also that the team would rather trade him than pay him $6M more, or worse, that they would rather trade him now than promise they won't trade him later after extracting a discount from him haha.
Junior Member
Posted 15 April 2013 - 03:38 AM
Junior Member
Posted 15 April 2013 - 03:39 AM
Advanced Member
Posted 15 April 2013 - 02:37 PM
phaketrash, again I said going by winning percentage. Not your personal feeling on who is better or worse. in my view I believe the team is worst, but only the playoffs will tell. In my world if you are winning more than your are losing then something must be working. I don't know if this team is actually better. They are winning more games than the last three years, but at what cost for the future. Again , that is my only view.
My point is using winning percentage is misleading. Who is to say it would not be higher w/ Harden on OKC still? But if you're saying OKC is worse without Harden, then I agree. In no way am I saying OKC is not somehow good -- it is still VERY good, one of the elite teams; a contender. But please don't confuse that with whether they could have been better this season if Harden had remained.
For our team, I would say yes, we are definitely better now than the last few yrs lol.
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users
