Wizards Have Yet to Reap Dividends From Westbrook Trade
There was much excitement about the Washington Wizards in some quarters early in the
season--media members love to run with any narrative that even
tangentially diminishes Russell Westbrook's value, such as asserting that the
Wizards "won" the trade that sent Westbrook from the Wizards to the Lakers in exchange for Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope--but over the course of an 82
game season teams reveal who they really are, and the Wizards are who
intelligent analysts thought they were: a team that is not very good,
and a team that is not better than it was last season with Westbrook running the
show.
Kuzma, Harrell--who the Wizards sent to Charlotte in a midseason deal--and Caldwell-Pope proved to be so valuable to the Wizards that the Wizards went 35-47 to finish 12th in the 15 team Eastern Conference, eight games behind the 10th place finish required to qualify for the Play-In Tournament. Yes, Bradley Beal missed 42 games, but the Wizards were just 17-23 when he played.
Remember, the 2021 Wizards went 34-38, and then blew out the Indiana Pacers 142-115 in the Play-In Tournament to clinch the eighth seed. That was the first time the Wizards franchise won an elimination game since 1979. The Wizards even won a playoff game versus the number one seed Philadelphia 76ers.
The Wizards started just 7-17 during the 2021 season, but finished strongly, largely due to Westbrook's exceptional play. A major and underrated contribution that Westbrook provides is rebounding. Not only did Westbrook average a triple double in 2020-21 (22.2 ppg, 11.5 rpg, 11.7 apg) for the fourth time in five seasons--Oscar Robertson is the only other player in pro basketball history to average a triple double even once--but he ranked sixth in the NBA in rebounding. It is incorrect to assert that Westbrook pads his rebounding numbers and
that if he were replaced with a different player there would not be any
impact on team rebounding. Rebounds are not fungible, and it is unfortunate that many of the media members who demonstrate their bias and/or ignorance by bashing Westbrook vote for the NBA's official awards, including MVP and the All-NBA Team. During the 2020-21 season with Westbrook pounding the boards as a 6-3 point guard, the Wizards ranked eighth in the NBA in rebounding. This season, the Wizards plummeted to 23rd in the NBA in rebounding.
It will be very interesting to track the Wizards moving forward and see just how much value is provided by the players that they acquired in the Westbrook trade. The only time the Wizards made the playoffs in the past four years is the one season that Westbrook spent with the team.
Labels: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma, L.A. Lakers, Montrezl Harrell, Russell Westbrook, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 8:17 PM
What Impact Will Russell Westbrook Have on the L.A. Lakers?
The L.A. Lakers acquired 2017 NBA regular season MVP, two-time scoring champion, and three-time assist leader Russell Westbrook from the Washington Wizards in exchange for Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The Lakers also received three second round draft picks, while the Wizards received the draft rights to Isaiah Jackson.
The winner of an NBA trade is almost always the team that acquired the best player, so the Lakers are the landslide winner of this trade. Westbrook is the NBA's career triple double leader, the only player in NBA history to average a triple double in four different seasons (Oscar Robertson is the only other player to accomplish this feat even once), and the most prolific rebounding guard in pro basketball history.
Any notion that Westbrook has to change his game to fit in with other great players is easily refuted. In fact, his game elevates the performances of other great players. All-Star players who have had their best seasons playing alongside Westbrook include Kevin Durant (won the 2014 regular season MVP), Paul George (third in 2019 regular season MVP voting after averaging a career-high 28.0 ppg), and Bradley Beal (averaged a career-high 31.3 ppg and a career-high .485 FG% during his one season playing alongside Westbrook). Also, James Harden had the second highest scoring average of his career (34.3 ppg) during his one season playing alongside Westbrook.
When healthy, the LeBron James-Anthony Davis duo not only led the L.A. Lakers to the 2020 championship but they have helped the Lakers to post a gaudy .744 regular season winning percentage (equivalent to a 61-21 record for an 82 game season). Adding Westbrook's talents and drive to that duo creates a team that--if healthy--should be the favorite to win the title. The main questions/concerns for this team revolve around James and Davis, not Westbrook. James is not getting any younger, and he has been limited by
injuries in each of the past two seasons. Davis has always been an
injury-prone player. Whether or not the Lakers win the 2022 NBA title
will have much more to do with the health and availability of those
players than with any supposed flaws in Westbrook's game.
Westbrook will
show up, play hard, and be productive. He is an outstanding rebounder and open court player, so the Lakers could have one of the most fearsome transition offenses in recent memory: the Lakers at full strength should be a very good defensive team, and their top three players are excellent rebounders, so there should be many opportunities to get a stop, control the boards, and score quickly before the opponent can get into a set defense.
From a skill set standpoint, this trio is at least as good as the LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh trio that won back to back titles with the Miami Heat while making four straight Finals appearances. James is not quite the athlete that he was back then, but when healthy he is still an MVP caliber player. Westbrook is more explosive than Wade was by that point in Wade's career, and Westbrook is a better rebounder and passer than Wade ever was. Davis is a better rebounder and rim protector than Bosh, and a better post scorer as well.
Some commentators have propagated the absurd notion that Buddy Hield would be a better fit with the Lakers than Westbrook. One writer even called Hield one of the greatest shooters in NBA history. Hield ranks 30th in career three point shooting percentage (.406), and he has never finished in the top five in that category in a season. There are 11 active players who have a higher career three point field goal percentage than Hield, including Davis Bertans and Joe Ingles. Wally Szczerbiak is just ahead of Hield on the career list, and Raja Bell is right behind Hield. No serious basketball observer would rank Bertans, Ingles, Szczerbiak or Bell among the greatest shooters in NBA history, and no serious basketball observer should rank Hield that highly either. Of course, three point field goal percentage is not the only way to measure shooting greatness--one has to consider a player's role and his shooting ability from other areas of the court--but Drazen Petrovic (.437), Stephen Curry (.433), Steve Nash (.428), and Klay Thompson (.419) are just a few of the players who rank ahead of Hield in this category and are demonstrably better overall shooters than he is.
Hield's .435 career field goal percentage is subpar for a perimeter player even after taking into account that more than half of his field goal attempts are from three point range. Hield has only made 509 free throws in five seasons, so he does not qualify to be listed among the career free throw percentage leaders, but even if he qualified his .863 free throw percentage would barely crack the top 40, just ahead of Luke Ridnour, John Long, and Jamal Crawford.
Hield is the kind of player who Kenny Smith calls "a looter in a riot" (though I cannot say that Smith has specifically put Hield in that category): in five NBA seasons, Hield has averaged 16.0 ppg in the regular season for teams that did not make a single postseason appearance.
Even if Hield were one of the greatest shooters of all-time, he still would not provide more value than a dynamic player like Westbrook who is a prolific scorer, an elite passer, and an elite rebounder. "Advanced basketball statistics" can be used to define Westbrook as an above average defender, an average defender, or a poor defender--which is yet another indication that "advanced basketball statistics" are not very useful for evaluating individual defense--but by any meaningful metric or evaluation method Westbrook is a better defender than Hield.
Westbrook played at an All-NBA level for four teams that advanced to the Western Conference Finals, and he has a great opportunity to be an All-NBA caliber performer for a Lakers team that wins a championship this season--assuming that James and Davis can stay healthy and that James can continue to defy the aging process by remaining an MVP caliber player.
Labels: Anthony Davis, Buddy Hield, Isaiah Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Montrezl Harrell, Russell Westbrook
posted by David Friedman @ 9:11 PM
Doncic Lets His Game Do His Talking
There are doers and there are talkers. Anyone can be a talker, but only people who have talent, focus, and determination can be doers. Some doers are also talkers, but their talk has meaning only because they are doers. Muhammad Ali, Reggie Jackson, and Deion Sanders are three examples of athletes who earned the right to talk by performing at a high level and winning championships. You may not like what they said or how they said it, but you had to respect their talent, their focus, and their determination. I respect non-talking doers like Julius Erving, Tim Duncan, and Kawhi Leonard, but I also respect Ali, Jackson, and Sanders because they put in the work to make sure that their deeds matched up to their boastful words.
The Dallas Mavericks' second year wunderkind Luka Doncic has not won a championship, but he seems to understand the difference between talking and doing. In game three of Dallas' first round series versus the L.A. Clippers, Montrezl Harrell directed profane comments at Doncic that included a derogatory mentioning of Doncic's skin color. Doncic answered in game four not with talking but with a whole lot of doing: 43 points, 17 rebounds, 13 assists, and a game-winning three point shot at the buzzer during overtime as Dallas defeated L.A. to tie the series at 2-2. Only two other players in NBA playoff history have had a 40-15-10
triple double: Oscar Robertson and Charles Barkley. Doncic also tied
Barkley for the second most points scored in a playoff triple double,
trailing only Russell Westbrook's 51.
It is interesting that the NBA has not disciplined Harrell, or even issued a public statement condemning what he said and making it clear that his conduct is unacceptable in the NBA. The league has previously issued substantial fines for various comments made by players during games, so the league's silence here is deafening. The NBA has to decide if it opposes demeaning language based on race, religion, sexual preference, or other categories. It is not acceptable that some categories of people are protected while others are not. Various media outlets reported that Harrell's Coach Doc Rivers told Harrell that what Harrell said is not acceptable. We also saw Harrell and Doncic speak to each other before game four. Harrell apologized to Doncic, and Doncic accepted Harrell's apology.
TNT's Charles Barkley rightly decried the NBA's double standard, while Shaquille O'Neal asserted that a different code applies to players during games because in the heat of the moment players say things that they do not really mean. Kenny Smith said that Harrell's remarks could be seen as "racist" but not "racism" because "racism" means that a person has power over another person. Smith said that Harrell has no power to keep Doncic out of the NBA, so Harrell is not engaging in racism. I don't know what Harrell thinks or feels in his mind and in his heart, but a racist comment is a racist comment based on the words and the context, not based on the skin color of the speaker. As Ernie Johnson noted, there is a difference between saying something like "That white boy is bad"--expressing admiration for a white player achieving success in a sport dominated by black players--and saying what Harrell said the way that Harrell said it. We know that Harrell's comment was not a compliment; only Harrell knows if it was a heat of the moment outburst, or an expression of racism--but we know that many times when a person makes a joke or makes a heat of the moment outburst that joke or outburst provides a glimpse into how that person really thinks/feels.
Smith agreed with Barkley that what Harrell said is not acceptable, and he also acknowledged O'Neal's point that NBA players often say things of that nature during games; Smith called this a "habit" that NBA players need to break.
Barkley's point is 100% correct. O'Neal may be right that players often talk like this, but Smith is right that players should stop doing this. Regarding the difference between "racist" and "racism," the dictionary definition of racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." There is a movement to redefine racism so that power is an essential component of the definition, but that is a distortion worthy of George Orwell's "1984." We should reject the notion that a person must be exercising power to be a racist; if you judge people based on race (or any characteristic other than their behavior, actions, and accomplishments) then you are a racist and you are engaged in racism. We already have words that encompass the power dynamic: when racism is combined with power then you have persecution and/or discrimination. It is flawed and dangerous thinking to promote the idea that certain people or certain groups of people cannot be racist because those people or those groups have been persecuted in the past or are being persecuted now.
Back to the game, and Doncic's dominance. Doncic was a game-time decision due to the sprained ankle that he
suffered in the previous game, but he did not use his injury as an
excuse or even talk about it unless he was asked about it. The Mavericks
trailed by 21 points in the first half and they were without the
services of Kristaps Porzingis--a late scratch due to a knee injury--but
they kept battling and playing hard.
The Philadelphia 76ers could learn a lot from watching the Mavericks.
Before the series, I picked the Clippers to win in six games because I expected Kawhi Leonard to perform at a high level at both ends of the court while I expected Doncic to perform at a high level only on offense. Doncic is far from being an elite defender like Leonard, but Doncic is so effective as a scorer/rebounder/playmaker that his contributions in those categories more than compensate for any relative defensive deficiencies. I think that the Clippers will win the next two games, but it will not be easy for them, and they could be staring down elimination in game seven if they do not tighten up their defense.
Leonard finished with 32 points, nine rebounds, and four assists. For most players that would be an exceptional performance, but by Leonard's high standards this was not a great game. He shot 10-22 from the field, and he missed a shot that could have won the game in regulation. Leonard had a -13 plus/minus number, suggesting that he did not control the game the way that he usually does. His teammate Lou Williams scored a game-high 36 points off of the bench.
Harrell had two points, one rebound, and one assist in 17 minutes. Paul George also had a "triple single": nine points, eight rebounds, three assists. George shot 3-14 from the field. Poor shooting has been a pattern for George throughout the series and, indeed, throughout his playoff career. At some point, this is not a "slump," but it is just who you are. Only a few games ago, George made fun of Damian Lillard for missing two free throws in a late game situation,
and I suggested that a player who has never won anything is not an authority on what it takes to win. More recently, George provided a profane reply on social media to anyone who criticized his playoff performances. Remember, George gave himself the nickname "Playoff P." Giving yourself a nickname rarely turns out well, and is inadvisable for anyone who has never won anything of substance; George has never reached the NBA Finals, and his career playoff field goal percentage is .418, including four playoff campaigns (out of nine) during which he shot worse than .400. George's field goal percentage through four games versus Dallas is below .300, so I don't want to see him at press conferences or on social media or in advertisements; the only place he should be seen outside of a game is in a gym working on his broken shooting stroke.
I picked the Clippers to win the 2020 NBA championship, and I stand by that selection not because of George or Harrell but because I believe in Kawhi Leonard and Doc Rivers. However, I wonder if Kawhi Leonard looks at his focused, tough-minded former teammates in Toronto and possibly regrets his decision to abandon them to move to L.A.
The bottom line is that Paul George and Montrezl Harrell have combined to win zero championships. Why are they talking?
George and Harrell need to talk less and do more. If Doncic were so inclined, he could provide a one word retort to Harrell and any other mouthy Clippers: "Scoreboard."
Labels: Dallas Mavericks, Kawhi Leonard, L.A. Clippers, Luka Doncic, Montrezl Harrell, Paul George
posted by David Friedman @ 3:40 AM
