I particularly enjoy the narrative that somehow KD was this great teammate and he was always willing to share the ball while Westbrook was the ballhog who was always responsible for the disjointed offense. KD was just as culpable in the OKC ball-stopping offense and ill-timed hero shots. There's a perception that Russ was more out of control but his game as a whole is chaotic. Durant's isolation fadeaways are just as selfish as Russ barreling to the rim.
Time will tell if he can break that habit, it won't be easy. Also wondering if long-term Draymond and others are going to be as engaged on the boards and on D while taking six or seven less shots per game.
Obviously as a UCLA fan I've seen Westbrook a ton and I'm a big fan of his but his game has fundamentally changed as he's gotten older and better.
The thing is that game against memphis in the Final 4 is sort of what intrigued NBA scouts, he had great workouts and the NBA loved him and he shot up the board. he wasn't on their radar even 2 months earlier, he had already informed UCLA he was coming back until that memphis game.
he's a great player but he's following a fairly common road where the better he gets on offense, the worse he gets on defense. I watched Sprewell do that with the Warriors and other teams, he's not THAT bad yet but he's become a guy that goes for steals on defense now for all the hype the Warriors shot well over 50% against him in that series, and he was the guy guarding Klay during that epic game 6 comeback and several of those shots were the direct result of him going for a steal and missing.
On offense I'm not sure who to compare him to, he has a bit of Marbury in him I guess. You look at the raw stats and say how you a guy put up 23.5 and 10.4 assists and be a selfish player? But like Marbury he is one of those guys who pounds the ball. It only stops if he shoots, turns it over or decides he has someone wide open to pass to. One of the guys on Warriors World kept a running stat during the Western finals on how often Westbrook passes the ball with 5 seconds or less on the shot clock, it was stunning how much it was. What that does to an offense is puts the guy who catches the ball in the position of having to shoot and often not having enough time to get a good shot. In that series, that guy was Kevin Durant more than 40% of the time. It was funny because the guy keeping the stat hates Durant, is furious the Warriors got him, but even he pointed out how obvious it was that so many of Durant's bad shots are the result of isolation sets where Westbrook gives him the ball wtih 4 seconds left and says ok you shoot.
I think Westbrook next year is going to have epic stats, 28PPG, 10 APG, he's going to approach an all time usage rate too.
again great player but he has never learned the value of if you don't have something move the ball. That's the basis of the Warriors offense. it remains to be seen if Durant fits that system or not, but I think he unquestionably fits it better than Westbrook would. Durant in general takes good shots, he's over 50% his last 4 years and was .496 the year before that. Westbrooks career best was .457. This past year he really improved, on UCLA boards we were all talking about what a good job Donovan was doing coaching Westbrook after Scott Brooks pathetic offense. But then the playoffs against the Warriors rolled around and Westbrook reverted to Brooks Ball. We'll see if Donovan can continue to get him to work on moving the ball next year, it's something Donovan openly talks about trying to get his team to pass the ball more. They are last in the NBA in hockey assists for a good reason, they don't pass the ball. Obviously Durant was guilty of that too, but over 50%, 8 RPG and 5 APG for a near 7 foot 2/3 he's doing something right.
