Colin Cowherd is wrong about Russel Westbrook

I listen to Colin's podcast most days of the week while I'm at work.  He's got a lot of insight, and does a good job with getting intriguing guests.  But on today's show Colin opined about how bad Russel Westbrook has been this year.  His shooting percentage is down to just 42%, and Colin asked why hasn't Russ been able to get a guy like Victor Oladipo going?  Colin then compared Westbrook and John Wall, a player Cowherd has been critical of (and myself as well) for years.  This year though,John is now shooting at 45%, and is seeing about a half an assist more per game.  The issue is though, continuing to use these traditional stats just doesn't do a good job of capturing what is going on in OKC. 

We'll start with a much better measure of shooting ability, in True Shooting.  Why is True Shooting better?  It accounts for the other valuable things that a player does, like drawing fouls (and making free throws) and shooting threes.  Russ has seen a slight dip in his numbers there, but its down from 54.2% to 53.2%.  This largely due to a much increased amount of threes, reflecting the fact that the Thunder really have lacked anyone that has that sort of range.  Alex Abrines, Jerami Grant and Victor Oladipo are the only other real threats on the team (Pre-trade deadline) players that you'd ask to shoot outside as well.  Abrines is a short minutes player, Grant is a liability at the foul line so his outside opportunities are limited as players know they can stay on him there, and Oladipo just isn't a great shooter.  His True Shooting rate has stayed the same this year despite no longer drawing a team's best defender.Westbrook is now also drawing fouls at a better rate, by about 5%.  This helps to open things up as it forces team's into holding back defensively.  Now what about the charge of Russ not getting his teammates involved more?  Well, he's now hitting a career high in assist rate, so his teammates are using his passing abilities to hit more shots.  It will also be interesting to see now with Taj Gibson and Doug Mcdermott, two good role players coming in to see if they can help take some of the offensive pressure off Westbrook.

The comparison between Wall and Westbrook shows the pair are both playing at a high level.  Westbrook has an *5 lead in assist rate, a nearly 1% lead in turnover rate, and basically identical True Shooting rates.  Wall also lags behind in free throw rate, by about 9%.  This doesn't take anything away from Wall, who is having a very good season.  It's just to state that Westbrook is doing some very impressive things, and that Colin is not taking everything into account.