I cannot believe I've become a fan of the sip, but...

It seems that Westbrook is unwilling to pass the ball and wants to be the man at the end of the game. Durant is the matchup nightmare and coach should be sure it ends up in his hands ala Kobe.

Why not put Durant on Kobe to make the fadeaways difficult?

quote:

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Why not put Durant on Kobe to make the fadeaways difficult?

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Because Westbrook is the better defender.

And I am also a fan of Durant. Really good guy with incredible ability. Makes up for choosing to go to Austin for college, but he clearly realized his mistake and left as soon as possible.

To be fair, and I'll preface this by saying I do think Westbrook does have a problem not being "the man", I think a lot of the poor shots and decisions he makes are based off of Durant not being able to get open off the ball b/c of his slender frame. I think Durant is improving at this, but still gets bumped off of his cuts quite a bit. That leads to Westbrook having to improvise a lot, and he's damn good at it.

I think realistically the only way to guarantee that Durant is the person getting the shot off at the end of the game is to have him go one on one, and that kind of hero ball doesn't work as often as we'd like it too.

Durant usually is the closer and has been clanking out most of his game winning shots this year. Coincidentally so has kobe. Hero ball is generally extremely low percentage.

Kobe is 32.7% shooting in "clutch" situations this year with 36 points per 48 minutes. Durant is 41.1% with 50.8 points per 48 minutes (of clutch time). Westbrook is 49.3% with 41.1 poitns per 48 minutes.

Seems like Kobe should be tryign to be more like Durant and Westbrook.

For comparison,
Lebron is 38.6% shooting with 33 points per 48.
Wade is 37.8% shooting with 28 points per 48.
Kyrie Irving is the best in the league with 54% shooting and 56 points per 48.


I admit I was wrong on Durant's percentages. 41% is pretty good. 35% from 3 balls in clutch situations.

[This message has been edited by HotardAg07 (edited 4/23/2012 10:49a).]

I agree the hero-ball is overrated. Unless you have Michael Jordan on your team (and nobody does), it is helpful to your chances to have multiple guys who can make the big shot.

Just think about all the big shots over the years that have been made by guys who played merely an accessory role on their team, and who would NEVER have been considered "closers" in the current context: Kerr, Paxson, Sean Elliot, Mario Ellie, Vernon Maxwell, Derek Fischer, etc. (I didn't metion Horry because he's the exception of a guy who was never the "star" on the team, but nevertheless is the guy that EVERYONE knew needed to have the ball hit his hands in crunch time)