Russell Westbrook is a fun and exciting player, showing unmatched amounts of high energy while being a high-flying dunker. This appealing playstyle along with great counting stats allow prime Westbrook, specifically his 2017 MVP, to be supremely overrated.
Westbrook should have finished 5th in the 2017 MVP. James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, and Steph Curry all performed better and had a bigger impact on winning compared to the best stat patter of all time. The main component that won Westbrook this MVP was his counting stats, averaging 31 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists per game. Averaging a triple-double is very cool, but other than that it means nothing. Westbrook has always been an inefficient scorer as his 3pt and midrange shooting is very inconsistent. In 2017 Westbrook had a TS% of 55% which mirrors the league average for that 2017 season (league average efficiency for an MVP is unheard of). On top of that, his team’s offense was 16th in the league by ORTG, every other player mentioned team was above that, even if they didn’t have a great supporting cast. The Thunder finished 6th in the West and, before this MVP, it was practically impossible to win MVP if your team wasn’t in the top 3 of your conference (Harden, Giannis, Jokic, and Embiid’s teams were all top 3).
A true MVP will be able to lead their team to a top-10 offense no matter the circumstances, for example, Kawhi’s supporting cast was not elite offensively but he still led them to a top-10 offense and he also played defense.
On top of his shortcomings as a scorer, Westbrook lacked consistent effort on defense, losing focus and gambling far too much for steals (his defense is much better now). So to wrap it up, even at Westbrook’s peak he is a league-average efficiency volume scorer, great playmaker (who was turnover prone), and subpar defender who couldn’t lead a team to a top-10 offense nor out of the first round of the playoffs.
Harden was a better scorer, equally as good playmaker, and led his team which was not star-studded to 2nd in the West and 2nd in offensive rating. Lebron did everything better than Westbrook and led his team to the finals. Kawhi Leonard who was a top 2 defender in the NBA (winning DPOY in each of the 2 prior years), led his team to a better record, better offense with a worse supporting cast on much better efficiency as a shooter. Lastly, Curry, a better, more impactful offensive engine, led his team in the regular season to the best offense of all.
In conclusion, Russell Westbrook’s counting stats lead to people believing that he is a #1 option on a championship team, which he has never been. Westbrook isn’t better than Chris Paul, he’s not better than Oscar Robertson, and not better than Steve Nash or Jason Kidd. Truly he is closer to Damian Lillard than these top 10 point guards.
