Yeah I remember getting killed here for loving this pickup by the Lakers.
Kicking the tires on a player like Rui was fine but this isn't "just who he is". He shot 29% from three after being traded to the Lakers and just made five threes in a game, a total he has never hit ever in his career. It was actually the game of his life yesterday.
Maybe he shot the 3-point game of his life yesterday, but he's been very usefully defending the opposing team's best wing in order to give LeBron a break, he has a lot of agility in the paint, he's in there after most shots contesting for the offensive board because AD and LeBron can't be bothered and the rest of them lack his vertical, his passing has shown a marked improvement (TOV% from 9.3% to 5.6%)... like, maybe he has less scoring responsibility on the Lakers than he did on the Wizards, his USG% has dropped, but to my eyes, he's being used in much more productive ways now. His On-Off (i.e. mostly independent of his team being good or bad) also went from -4.0 on Washington to +1.8 on the Lakers, suggesting they found a better role for him.
He had a bad shooting year when he was the league MVP too. That’s all a part of The Westbrook Experience. He pretty much singlehandedly won the game for them down the stretch last night with his defense and rebounding.
Rui actually shot 45% from three last year and was just short of qualifying to beat Luke Kennard for the league title. He has excellent mechanics and rotation. I’d guess his true number is between the 45 and 29 which is very good for a stretch big.
His BREF game score for yesterday was 24.7. This was the 216th game of his career (including playoffs), and it was the 3rd highest score of his career. Given that the two games where he scored higher were a loss and a 25 point win (both regular season), and this one was a playoff win that was within a point with 3 minutes left, it's more than reasonable to say that this was the "game of his life," especially considering the stakes.
His 3p% year by year is .287, .328, .447 and .319. His 3p% in college was .316. One of these things is not like the other...I agree with you that his true number is somewhere between 45% and 29%, but that's just a massive gulf in usefulness. That's bigger than the difference between Daniel Theis or Al Horford taking that open shot, or Blake Griffin vs. Grant Williams.
….but he did get to choose his destination. Durant wanted to go to the Suns. I think he himself has come out and said that
My buddy is a Suns fan who has in-laws with season tickets to this area.
No more trading first class tickets for coach, and pocketing the difference, tax free?
Ha, nice. (Sometimes it feels like the whole world is max two degrees of separation from a SoSHer.)
I know he asked for a trade, I didn't think he asked for a trade to Phoenix specifically. I thought that really depended on the market the Nets could drum up.
He's probably my favorite non-Celtic ever. He's just wired so differently.
Yes, I read that on Twitter too. But Westbrook is always getting into it with fans, more so than the rest of the league. He can’t block that shit out for some reason.
Did you guys think Giannis was undercut? Seemed to me Love was stable and in position in time; GA just trucked him and landed wrong.
View: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10065145-report-kevin-durant-privately-requested-trade-to-suns-after-kyrie-irving-mavs-deal
I did not. I thought it was a charge, and I think it would've been called as such if they hadn't called a borderline offensive foul on Holiday the possession immediately prior.
Agree and this is exactly how a veteran official should officiate a game. I know others disagree but what is the objective here? When two calls can go either way, and sides not even agree after slo-no replay, how do we criticize officials for not getting it right at game speed? Make up calls or “even up calls” have been necessary forever to maintain fairness.
I don’t think officials should make intentionally wrong calls. There also seems to be some tension between the idea that the game is too fast to reliably officiate to everyone’s liking (probably true) with the idea that officials are at the same time so good that they can knowingly officiate those bang bang calls incorrectly to compensate for a prior perceived incorrect call. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your post.
Yes you definitely are. Over the course of a game there are a ton of 50/50, 60/40 calls. When one of these go the other way and another comes up shortly thereafter we often see the call go the other way. This is all in the name of fairness. I am certainly not in favor of a blatant call going the other way to “even it out” which we don’t see nearly as much of as in the 70’s/80’s when it was rampant.
I think these are good ideas to expand replay appropriately, but to cut down on the stoppages (or at least their impact) they really need to implement a strict replay timer in my opinion. If you can't figure it out in a reasonable amount of time (60 seconds?), just call it inconclusive and play on with the call on the court. The NBA seems to be the worst league currently in terms of replays just dragging on forever.
Charles Oakley and the late Anthony Mason would like to invite you into their posse.
And the second best 3-19 game?
For sure.
I don't have any sympathy for players who stop playing without a whistle. That's one of the first things you learn in sports as a child. I don't agree the Giannis play should have been a no-call, but players potentially not playing until a whistle shouldn't be a concern when making that decision.
Clippers' Russell Westbrook, Fan Altercation Video to Be Investigated by Suns
The guy was a key frontcourt piece to their 17-7 finish and we saw what happened in G1…..what does a guy have to do?
He’s been doing it for them since he was acquired. Obv not to the level of what happened in G1. It’s funny how his G1 performance has brought people out to say how awful he is lol.
This is probably pushing it a bit... he's played like an 8th/9th man since they got him. He's still pretty bad and that's from someone who thought (still do) it was a good trade.
