It’s not OK! Westbrook’s wrongdoings

Russell Westbrook is one of the best guards in the NBA, his explosiveness and athleticism is matched by few other guards in the league. However, numerous times this season Westbrook has cost Oklahoma games that they should have won with ease. Here’s why…

Westbrook’s decision making is questionable, particularly in the dying minutes of a close game. On offense, he appears to be under the impression that he is the ‘go to guy’, the player who will get a much needed basket in crunch time. He isn’t that kind of player on this team, that accolade goes to Kevin Durant who is a phenomenal clutch scorer. Despite having one of the best late-game scorers by his side, Westbrook will often drive hard to the hoop regardless of how many defenders are in his way. This attempt to get a ‘high percentage’ basket usually results in a tightly guarded missed shot and Westbrook proceeding to complain to the referee instead of getting back on defense.

This type of poor decision making most recently hurt the Thunder when they lost to the Rockets, a game in which they were leading by 12 points in the final quarter. On several occasions in the last five minutes of this game, Russell Westbrook drove hard into the paint area. This forced Sefalosha’s defender to play help defense on Westbrook, thus freeing up Sefalosha for a wide open corner three-point shot, he was on fire throughout this game, shooting 6-10 from deep and 11-16 from the field. Making the pass to Sefalosha would have likely resulted in a made three-point shot, rewarding the Thunder with a three point lead, however, Westbrook decided to go it alone and force up a shot against three defenders. Inevitably, this resulted in a miss and allowed the Rockets to take the lead. Just one minute later Westbrook repeated this exact mistake.

On the next defensive set for the Thunder, Westbrook fails to pick up Jeremy Lin in transition, ultimately leading to Serge Ibaka guarding the much faster Lin on the perimeter, an area Ibaka has an extremely limited ability to defend. This resulted in the ball getting swung round to Lin who makes a three-point shot in the face of Ibaka, gifting Houston a three point lead. That horrible defensive matchup was created through lazy transition defense by Westbrook after missing his horrible shot on the other end of the floor.

Due to his athleticism Westbrook can play great on-ball defense, yet when he is required to guard a player away from the ball he becomes confused and disoriented. This was most evident when the Spurs hosted the Thunder last November. In the final 30 seconds of the game, Westbrook played slack defense on Tony Parker, allowing Parker to hit the three to tie the game. With just six seconds left and still a tie ball game the Spurs called an inbound play, Tony Parker cut across the court towards the ball and hit a wide open jump shot to win the game, whilst Westbrook was infamously lost at the other side of the court, with no idea where Parker was.

Westbrook’s inconsistent decision making when handling the ball has hurt the Thunder several times this season, and it will likely do so for the foreseeable future. There is a growing opinion that Westbrook would play great as a shooting guard, this would eradicate much of his inept decision making, resulting in him becoming an even better player.