This and that around the League 20-21

Hawk, keep posting your truth bombs. You are right over the target.

https://sports.yahoo.com/russell-westbrook-is-a-legend-appreciate-his-triple-doubles-or-not-033541714.html



Russell Westbrook is a legend, appreciate his triple-doubles or not


Ben Rohrbach

Mon, May 10, 2021, 10:35 PM·7 min read



Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks did Russell Westbrook a disservice.

"I used to always say he's going to probably go down as the third-best point guard ever, but I think he's passed one and he's going to go down as probably the second-best," Brooks told reporters last week, ranking the point guard he has coached for eight seasons behind only Magic Johnson, according to NBC Sports' Chase Hughes. "What he does, there's no point guard that has ever done it. Nobody. Nobody."

That exaggeration belies Westbrook's greatness, painting a growing legend as a caricature. Westbrook is not even the second-best point guard of his generation, so the topic becomes another distraction from a Hall of Fame career, just as debating the relevance of triple-doubles overshadows the record he just set.

Everything in the public discourse about Westbrook's career comes with a but.

He has more triple-doubles than anyone, but ... triple-doubles are arbitrary statistics.

He has two scoring titles, but ... he can't shoot.

He is working on a third assist crown, but ... he is about to lead the league in turnovers for a fourth time.

He has more rebounds than any point guard ever not named Jason Kidd, but ... he's a stat-hunter.

He has never missed the playoffs, but ... he also hasn't won a title.

He tries his ass off, but ... he plays out of control.

And the biggest but of them all: He was the 2016-17 MVP, but ... James Harden should've won. Or Kawhi Leonard. Or LeBron James. Anyone but Westbrook. To which I say you are not seeing him in the right light. Basketball is an art form, Westbrook paints with broad strokes, and 2016-17 was a virtuoso's masterpiece.


Russell Westbrook is the NBA's new Mr. Triple-Double. (Casey Sykes/Getty Images)


Absent from most analyses of Westbrook's game is the fact he plays harder than anyone, an immeasurable characteristic that is every bit as impactful as his extremely measurable triple-double statistics, if not more.  

Westbrook's work ethic wears off on his teammates, and, yes, sometimes it wears on them, but raising the level of effort on a team is no small contribution. It saved the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016. History has been unkind to small markets that lose a player of Kevin Durant's caliber to a trade or free agency. It is far too easy to throw in the towel when a superstar's exit lowers a team's ceiling below bona fide contender.

Go back and look at that roster. Victor Oladipo, Domantas Sabonis and Jerami Grant were nowhere near the players they became. Oladipo was a disappointment at the time who credited his later success to a bodytransformation in the summer of 2017 and a relentlessness he learned from Westbrook. Sabonis was then a rookie and Grant a 22-year-old project. They averaged a combined 11.3 points per game that year.

Billy Donovan was the coach. He played Andre Roberson, Anthony Morrow, Alex Abrines and Semaj Christon more than 5,000 minutes on the wing. Roberson played 30 minutes a night and shot 24.5% from distance. Morrow and Christon never played in the NBA again. Abrines made it another season and a half.

Donovan was so desperate to fill minutes around Westbrook he played Steven Adams and Enes Kanter together in 63 of their 82 games — the sort of spaceless dual-big lineup that no longer exists four years later. A February deal for Taj Gibson and Doug McDermott was considered a godsend for a wayward roster.

It is no wonder the Thunder were outscored by 9.5 points per 100 possessions whenever Westbrook rested in 2016-17 (roughly the equivalent of this year's tanking Oklahoma City team). With him on the floor, they outscored opponents by 3.9 points per 100 possessions (akin to this year's Brooklyn Nets). Westbrook's on/off rating of +13.4 that season was more than twice that of Leonard (+3.3) and Harden (+2. combined.

It is comparable to reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo's +13.5 on/off rating for the Milwaukee Bucks last season. The Denver Nuggets are 4.7 points per 100 possessions better with MVP favorite Nikola Jokic on the floor this season. They are operating at a 53-win pace with a wealth more talent around Jokic.

Nobody scored more points in the clutch (within five points in the final five minutes) than Westbrook's 247 in 2016-17, and only four players had more assists. OKC was 25-15 in those games. No other player has scored more than 200 clutch points in a season since James' 208 for the 61-win Cleveland Cavaliers in 2009-10. This is the long way of saying that the Thunder had no business winning 47 games in the West.

None of that captures what Westbrook meant to that season. He was the hero who cast Durant the villain, a model of loyalty in opposition to the worst of the player movement era. Westbrook channeled the anger of an entire city, and his triple-double chase was a revelation, capped by a 50-point, 16-rebound, 10-assist outing in which he drilled a game-winning 3-pointer to eliminate the Denver Nuggets from the playoffs.

The list of players who have done more with less is not long and mostly includes MVPs. Yet, there are multiple prominent NBA voices who believe history has proven right their picks against Westbrook in 2017.

It is not unlike the campaign to devalue triple-doubles. I get it. Achieving double figures in three statistical categories may be no more impactful than a higher-scoring night that falls one rebound shy of 10. Except, Westbrook led the league in scoring the first year he averaged a triple-double. If teammates gifted him a few extra rebounds, so be it. What difference does it make if you consider 10 an arbitrary number anyway?

Triple-doubles are normalized because Westbrook normalized them. They are not normal. Averaging a triple-double for a season is not normal. Oscar Robertson was not normal. If Dallas Mavericks sensation Luka Doncic ever averages a triple-double while winning a scoring title, it sure as hell will not be normal.

Westbrook may not be the second-best point guard ever. He may not even be in the top 10, but he is one of a kind. Only other legends stand between him and Magic, and none of them has done what he just did.

Westbrook is up to 11.6 rebounds and 11.6 assists per game. He has room to spare. These are not empty statistics. This is outworking everyone and being freaking awesome at basketball. His effort over the past three months has salvaged the season for a Wizards team that would have caved long ago without him.

As Westbrook said in April, when he broke Wilt Chamberlain's record for triple-doubles in a month, "I don’t care what anybody thinks of this whatever they want to call it ‘stat-padding’ or ‘not useful.’ I think it’s very interesting that it’s not useful when I’m doing it. It wasn’t useful when Magic and Oscar and those guys were doing it. Now that I do it and it looks easy, this s— ain’t easy, though. I’ll tell you that. It ain’t easy."

That Westbrook is defined by an effort to rationalize his statistics is kind of perfect, because nobody has played so irrationally outside the box as Westbrook, and the result is nothing short of a legendary career.



Bob
MY NOTE:  This record lasted for 47 years.  It was considered 'unbreakable'.  There are only 3 'unbreakable' records left now, that I can think of:  DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak (set in 1941, still standing after 80 years.  Pete Rose got to 44 in 1978), Cal Ripken Jr's 2630 consecutive baseball games (which broke "The Iron Horse" Lou Gehrig's supposedly 'unbreakable' record of 2130 consecutive games, although it took a little thing like ALS, aka 'Lou Gehrig's Disease, to end that streak) and Wilt's 100 point game (Kobe with 81 in 2006 has come closest).


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https://sports.yahoo.com/report-hornets-could-interested-big-050343588.html



Report: Hornets could be interested in big man Daniel Theis in free agency



Jacob Rude

Fri, May 21, 2021, 10:03 PM·2 min read



The Charlotte Hornets are set for an interesting offseason with key parts of their roster potentially undergoing shakeups. Two areas, specifically, could see the most turnover in the center position and the guard position.

The backcourt will see Devonte’ Graham and Malik Monk enter restricted free agency and the frontcourt will see Cody Zeller and Bismack Biyombo enter unrestricted free agency. With the franchise focused on building a team around LaMelo Ball this offseason, changes are likely incoming in some regards.

The frontcourt, specifically, is an area that will almost certainly undergo changes. While Zeller and Biyombo offered positive impact in some aspects, neither gelled seamlessly in the lineup for various reasons.

One player that could come in as a replacement is big man Daniel Theis, who The Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell mentioned as a potential option for the team this offseason.

Rick Bonnell
@rick_bonnell
Mitch Kupchak said yesterday that he could see adding multiple centers this off-season. A name I've heard might be on that list of options: Free agent-to-be Daniel Theis.
6:21 AM · May 21, 2021


Last season between time with the Celtics and Bulls, Theis averaged 9.6 points and 5.5 rebounds in 24.6 minutes per game. An interesting aspect of his game is that he shot 32.2% from the 3-point line on 2.3 attempts per game. While P.J. Washington excelled as a stretch big at times this season, he was the only option the team had as a stretch center and Theis could offer another option in that regard.

In 42 games with the Celtics, Theis had a net rating of plus-2.4 net rating on the court and the Celtics had a minus-4.0 net rating with him off the court, the lowest figure of any one single player for Boston last season. With Chicago, he had nearly the opposite effect on the team, though it came in only 24 games and half as many minutes.

Theis is a more modern option as a big man that can stretch the floor and also be solid enough defensively to see minutes for a contender like Boston last season. Of his 42 games in Boston, Theis started 37 games. While he isn’t the glamorous name that some Hornets fans may desire as a big man, he would certainly provide valuable minutes for the team.


Bob



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Can someone explain to me why we couldn’t get rid of Semi or GWill or both to clear enough cash to keep Theis and why we couldn’t do it all at the the end of the season?

cowens/oldschool wrote:Can someone explain to me why we couldn’t get rid of Semi or GWill or both to clear enough cash to keep Theis and why we couldn’t do it all at the the end of the season?

Cow,

Ok, let me try...

1.  Theis was going to get a big payday this summer, bigger than Danny thought he could pay.

2.  If he waits until the summer he has limited control.  He has his Bird Rights, I think, but that's it.  He could still get overbid and then he loses Theis for nothing.  Danny's taken a lot of heat on this board because we lost quality players and didn't get anything for them.  It's not so easy to know if a player is unhappy or not, not everybody is an open book.  It is much easier to know the market to see if the player is in demand or not.  In fact, that's what Danny and Mike Zarren do all year, they call their peers and try to find out how much they value their players and how much they covet, and are willing to give up to get, ours.

3.  Assuming Semi and/or GWill have any value on the trade market (a big "if") it wouldn't be enough to pay Theis a couple of months later, not even both of them together.  Grant makes $2.6M and Semi makes $1.75M.  That's $4.35M and are close to a couple of veteran minimum salaries.  Even if we threw in some TPE to pay for them we'd not only probably have to take some salary back, which reduces how much we could have for Theis, it would be tough in my opinion to find a team that would take two such similar players.  Also, we'd have to replace them on the roster.  If we replace those two with two other minimum salary players then the money is the same (we might like the new players better, but it doesn't free up salary cap for Theis).  I'm betting Theis will get more than a $5M raise and we are hard capped or damn close to it.


Bob


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Got it bob thanks, wish we had Gafford on his 2nd year here....

cowens/oldschool wrote:Got it bob thanks, wish we had Gafford on his 2nd year here....

Cow,

Everybody wants the picks who pan out, that's a no-brainer. Success has a million parents but failure is an orphan.

Would you trade RWill for Gafford?


Bob


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bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Got it bob thanks, wish we had Gafford on his 2nd year here....

Cow,

Everybody wants the picks who pan out, that's a no-brainer.  Success has a million parents but failure is an orphan.

Would you trade RWill for Gafford?


Bob


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I don’t remember if I said it on the board, but I did want Gafford just because of his length and what little I read of him and some clips. We have had 3 years to get RWill healthy, he should have gotten surgery, which 112288 showed can work for his cramping knees/calves. Can’t remember the name of the condition, if RWill can get healthy, a very big if, I’d keep him; if he’s a 50 game a season player at 15 minutes a game, yeah I would do that trade.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/former-celtics-guard-now-euroleague-173452077.html


A former Celtics guard is a now a EuroLeague champion


Asher Low
Mon, May 31, 2021, 10:34 AM






An incredible three-year run in Europe has resulted in the most coveted basketball championship outside of the NBA for former Celtics guard Shane Larkin. His Turkish squad Anadolu Efes took home the EuroLeague championship yesterday with an 86-81 comeback win over Barcelona.

Larkin starred as he has for the past three years in Turkey, scoring 21 points while dishing out 3 assists in the deciding victory. The former Celtic defeated a number of former NBA players on Barcelona including Pau Gasol, Nikola Mirotic, and Nick Calathes. For Larkin, it was the culmination of a three-year journey after losing in the EuroLeague championship game in 2018-19 despite an incredible individual performance, having a promising year cut short due to COVID-19, and then ultimately coming out on top in 2020-2021.

Larkin spent five seasons in the NBA, with his most recent stint coming in 2017-2018 for the Boston Celtics.


Bob


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John Karalis
@RedsArmy_John
·
13h
Clippers just announced Kawhi's surgery to repair a partially torn ACL





Bob


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I wonder what is going to happen with Kwahi. Is he going to jump ship again? He was not happy with LA Clippers dr’s and trainers at the end of the year. Have we heard that story before about him?