Russell Westbrook can average a triple double but you still won't be watching playoff basketball.
Russell Westbrook can win the MVP but the Thunder won't be in the playoffs.
The NBA is in an era that super teams are the only way to win championships. There is only one player who can single handedly lead his team to the championship. I'll give you a hint, he's in Cleveland not OKC.
Russell Westbrook is going to put up some of the most crazy stats you will ever see. He knows the Thunder are his his team and nobody is going to get in the way of that. Look out! Westbrook will attack the rim with more ferocity than anybody in the NBA. But guess what, it won't matter.
The Thunder are going to consistently beat bad teams and struggle to beat the good NBA teams.
The Thunder started off hot and are 3-0. In those three games Russell Westbrook has a combined 116 points, 35 assists, and 37 assists! The Thunder faced the Sixers, Suns, and Lakers. All of which could be argued as three of the worst five teams in the NBA. Out of the three the only convincing win was against the Lakers. The Thunder needed a 4th quarter push to beat the lowly Sixers and then they needed OT to beat the Suns. It'll be a whole new story when the Thunder have to face the Warriors on Thursday.
It doesn't look like Billy Donovan has changed his gameplan for the Thunder this year as he will continue to Iso, Iso, Iso, and then Iso again with Westbrook. This might've worked when Westbrook had Durant but now he has Oladipo (haha). Teams are going to start clogging the paint and taking away driving lanes and then after that they're going to make Westbrook beat them with his mediocre shooting.
If you think the other Thunder players are going to be able to pick up some of the slack for Westbrook, you're wrong. Oladipo is an athletic freak but was made to look good on the Magic (why do you think they traded him), Steven Adams is a physical rebounder and that's it, and Kanter honestly just takes up space. A report came out today that the Thunder are trying to extend the contracts of Oladipo and Adams for $90 million and $100. If the Thunder believe that is a playoff core, they are delusional.
The Thunder are going to heavily rely on Westbrook and Westbrook alone to grind out wins. There going to stick around in every game they play behind Westbrook but even he won't be able to win them enough games to make the playoffs. The Thunder will be stuck in NBA mediocrity this year and miss the playoffs.
No comments:
Post a Comment