That’s what I was saying. The Thunder were bad top to bottom.

Nope. The threat of a fast break doesn’t exist until the ball’s in Westbrook’s hands. In the time it takes to make that pass the defense is getting set. If Russ grabs the rebound they have to worry about someone streaking for a quick outlet or Russ running straight at them before they’re in their half-court defense.…

Westbrook played terribly. Harden did too for the first half. You can’t blame it all on him though. They got horribly out rebounded and their defense as a team was a mess. Harden is maybe the best P&R handler in the league. He’s gonna feast on Kanter every single time.

They’re the best rebounding team in the league so it definitely doesn’t hurt, and they’re the third best team in transition so it’s obviously preferable to their half-court sets.

How exactly would Good Russ have helped Kanter’s defense?

I know you’re on the anti-Westbrook campaign, but getting the bigs to box out for Westbrook to start the fast break earlier is pretty ingenious (assuming Donovan is the one who came up with it). Wouldn’t be surprised if other teams with dynamic PGs started doing it (Wizards, Rockets, Warriors).

The Pelicans? Westbrook/AD pick and roll would be murderous.

But statistically Thomas’ individual defense drags the team defense down as well, almost to the point that his offensive impact is a wash. I still think he’s a great player, but Butler’s all-around game makes him better.

They’re a quality 3 and D team who have two 6th Men of the Year in Eric Gordon and Lou Williams who could fill the gap in offense Harden would leave behind.

Yeah I get that there’s no precedent, I just think that precedent is stupid. We currently have the Warriors juggernaut, Pop’s Spurs, and LeBron’s Cavs so it’s not like there’s a lack of competition.

It’s not when that ball hog is getting you better shots than you could create for yourself. I could understand that argument if we were talking about a gunner like Kobe, but Westbrook is averaging double digit assists and leads the league in Assist% by a huge margin. It’s currently higher than John Stockton’s career…

The Thunder won 47 so what exactly is your point? A team’s win record says more about the team than it does any single individual playing on it.

What part of individual award do you not understand?

What I mean is citing a team record for an individual award makes even less sense than something like triple doubles. How many wins is considered “good” depends entirely on league parity.

Ok, then don’t you think it would make sense to reward the player who had the biggest impact on a teams wins? The Spurs would still make the playoffs without Kawhi, as would the Rockets without Harden. The Thunder would be dreaming of ping pong balls.

That’s an even more arbitrary measure than triple doubles.

I won’t because team wins is obviously a terrible proxy for individual value. Just because I don’t have a vote doesn’t mean I can’t give my opinion.

So if he has historically a high usage rate, and he has a bad night, and they lose, is that not something that should count against him?

By that measure Curry, Durant, Thompson, and Green should be the top candidates for MVP.

They won enough games to be the 6th seed. The correlation between Westbrook playing well and the Thunder winning is extremely high.