Norm has utility but Ty treats him like he’s the 3rd best player on the team a lot of times.

– Russ is killing the first unit because the defense isn’t there…

For that to be true, Russ would have to be bad on defense and others clearly better. Not seeing that:

A) The strength of schedule was way above-average while playing several elite offensive teams.
B) Nobody played defense in the first Kings game. Was Russ awful on defense in that game? Yes. Was anybody not awful? No.
C) What has Russ done in the other games? Denver: best defensive rating by a mile (14 points). Team lost in OT without Westbrook. Minnesota: defensive rating around the team average. Warriors: bad game, the opposite of Denver. Second Kings game: around team average. Overall, this equals out to average defense, something confirmed by…
D) His defensive rating on the Clippers is 113. For context: that’s tied with PG, Kawhi and Batum for their season average. The difference being that Russ is the only one of those guys who only played strong teams. Everybody else got a ton of games vs the bottom-feeders in.

That’s not to say Westbrook is an awesome defender, he can be great, terrible or average. It’s to say that the statement doesn’t hold up.

The same happens when we look at stats like BPM or clutch data. Westbrook is a minimum contract for the Clippers who puts up better numbers vs better competition than Wall, Kennard, Zubac or Morris did vs a weaker schedule – according to BPM. He’s about tied with Mann, Powell and Batum. We can also look at plusminus, then Westbrook has obviously been a negative after 5 losses but the truly negative minutes came from Wall, Powell, EG and Coffey. But that’s a team stat that’s less fair, Powell has rightfully been in the discussion for 6th man.

Point is we can’t jump to other conclusions or announce this or that as the problem or the fix. There is no one fix or problem, it’s a multitude of those. If we wanna talk about single players and their role though, then it makes sense to start with the guys who very obviously deserve more or fewer minutes indicated by data across the board. That in turn will lead to better team stats overall. E.g. RoCo or Plumlee are pretty obviously solid players. Morris obviously is not – this season. He could be the situational guy when you need offense, spacing and better shooting. But sure as hell he ain’t outplaying Covington.

Turnover rate and closing with Russ are other interesting narratives. His individual turnover rate is high, so are his assists. What happens to the team or other players who replace him in the role as a creator? Vs Warriors that might make sense as Golden State turned Russ into a clear negative after the first quarter. Minnesota? Boy, they all threw the ball away left and right and were vulnerable to Minnesota’s defensive strategy. Look at the Lakers team turnover rate – after Bron joined the team (bottom 5/bottom 10), after Westbrook joined the team (19th, then 8th), during Bron’s injury when Russ and AD led and they played a more team-oriented style. Check the clutch data. There’s big negatives there like abysmal free throw shooting but there’s also a terrific assist-to-turnover ratio, a ton of steals, rebounds and a plusminus (-0.5 on a team that’s worse than that) that’s surprisingly solid. And there’s much better clutch shooting in the second half of his season.

I don’t know the fixes either, I just know Westbrook’s game inside and out. It’s not as simple as narratives suggest (with the lack of shooting being the only exception). Russ shot way better with Houston for a reason, he’s off to a good start with the Clippers and I could really see that continue to a certain degree (45-47% maybe, not 53). Let him facilitate, give him scoring around, his shot attempts will go down, shot quality up.

The big question to me is how confident are they in PG and Kawhi long term? I think this season makes them definitely think very very hard about moving the 2 picks available to them in a trade in like 2028 and 2030? to improve the roster around them. Even just one of the picks for a minor upgrade is probably not worth it given the long term outlook.

Kawhi and PG also both can opt out after next season, so what do you do when they’re both free agents at like 33 and 34 respectively. I mean if they haven’t won a chip by then, would you max them out again? Or would they consider just walking away that summer and you’re left with nothing? Makes it at least a strong possibility you have to consider what their trade values are this summer or by the deadline next season. Because if you don’t feel like they’re worth another $250M+ contract, then you might have to move them sooner rather than later.

But 2022 was an outright year, so no matter how bad we were, OKC got our pick with no strings attatched.

If it was swaps even years and outright odd years, we would have had a chance to lean into the tank last year and get a top-10 pick.

Literal insult to injury lol