Daily Thunder.com

Westbrook did well on defensive parings with Thabo and Perkins. Durant was actually his worst defensive pairing. Harden and Ibaka defensive pairings were essentially neutral.

It is tough to get everything to lineup positively at the same time and for every opponent. It isn't fair to expect perfection but there is better and worse choices.

If someone has access to the tape it might be worth looking closely at exactly what stuff happened when Dallas completely smashed the playoff starting lineup. That could make a good article. Less than an hour of game clock time.
And then compare it to what Westbrook-Harden-Durant-Ibaka-Collison did against Dallas.

Durant's 4 best defensive pairs are the same as on offense.
His worst defensive pair was Green.

Correction: the pair information I provided above was for just offense. Sorry, that point slipped my mind for a moment. On defense the Westbrook-Durant pairing was a modest negative last season but they're still a good overall pair. Perkins-Ibaka made up for their offensive loss with defensive impact so maybe Perkins could still start but perhaps with Harden instead of Thabo. Perhaps especially against a team like Dallas with a decent defense and a really great offense to try to avoid falling behind early. Harden-Ibaka was slightly positive on defense, not quite as much as the offensive loss estimate, but that pairing is probably ok to go with.

The 5 man lineup data was for offense and defense so no change there.

RAPM player pair estimates (for big minute pair only) suggests the following:

Harden
best pairs: Collison (best), then Durant, Mohammed, Maynor (3 bench, 1 starter)
worst pairs: Westbrook (slight negative) and Ibaka (more)

Ibaka
best pairs: Collison (best), Thabo, Maynor, Durant (2 bench, 2 starters)
worst pairs: Perkins, Westbrook, Harden (worst)

If Harden starts one would want his relationship with Westbrook to improve and whatever kinks there are when Harden and Ibaka are on the floor together to get worked out as well. Adding Harden to the starting lineup by itself would put Ibaka with his three worst pairs.

Westbrook's best pair is Durant, followed by Thabo. Ibaka is Westbrook's worst pair, by this metric.

If one move Harden into the starting limeup, one might consider moving Collison in for most of that time too (to be balance 2 good pairs with 2 weak ones for Harden). Collison wouldn't necessarily have to start, they could just bring him in early.

Every lineup used over 50 minutes last regular season and positive on traditional Adjusted +/- had the Westbrook-Durant pairing or Harden-Collison. The very best performing lineup had both, with Ibaka / without Perkins. (That lineup also gives Ibaka 2 good pairs with 2 weak ones.)

Westbrook-Harden-Durant-Ibaka-Collison gives Durant his best 4 big minute pairs. Unfortunately it gives Westbrook his 3 worst major minute pairs. But it still seems to work as a unit anyways according to the 5 man lineup data because it works ok or better for the other guys and best for Durant.

Maynor's 4 best pairs are Harden, Durant, Ibaka and Collison. So that 5 man lineup is only a small fraction behind the lineup with Westbrook.

Too bad those 2 best performing lineups over 50 minutes only got used about 3 minutes per game last season. Seems like room to improve the lineup management.

That these 2 lineups performed almost the same suggests Westbrook is not supercharging that lineup. His overall near neutral Adjusted +/- suggests the same thing for all minutes. The difference between what he does and what Maynor does in terms of scoring activity seems to get picked up by the other guys when Westbrook is out. The lineup offensive ratings are pretty near the same, at least in the regular season.

In the playoffs those 2 lineups increased minutes... but only from 3 minutes to 4.5 minutes per game. The lineup with Maynor had a rough 20 minutes but that sample is so small one shouldn't overact to it. The lineup with Westbrook did fine, far better than the starting lineup with Thabo and Perkins. But got only 13 total minutes against Dallas (none against the starting 5 of Dallas). Maybe
Westbrook-Harden-Durant-Ibaka-Collison wouldn't do as well against all starters as it does against lineups with several bench players but the only way to get better information on that is to try it for some decent amount of time. Unless the team has unexpected struggles next season, there would seem to be enough room to experiment more in the regular season to get ready for the challenges of top teams in the playoffs.

Westbrook-Thabo-Durant-Ibaka-Perkins was slightly negative in the first 2 rounds of the playoffs but turned toxic against Dallas going -27 in about 55 minutes. They only lost the series by 20 total points so arguably the rest of the lineups beat Dallas and the entire series lost rested on the performance of the starting lineup they went with.

Serge has been doing some work in this second half. He's looked great. I think he'd be even better if Spain ran some sort of offensive sets to get him involved. He's still managed to get open and knock down several of the patented 15 footers along with some garbage dunks around the rim and a nice block at the other end.

Damn, Jonas Valanciunas is a pretty nice looking prospect. From what I understand Toronto owns his NBA rights. Bummer.

Hey Serge and Spain is live on ESPN 3 right now. During waking, non-work hours.

I don't know the Blazers' inside politics well but I'd guess that Larry Miller would like Weaver. Pritchard, Penn, Patterson, Cho all got push out. Probably mostly by the Vulcans but it doesn't appear Miller was opposed and he may have helped. As a consequence of their exits Miller has gotten more involved in basketball decision-making. He was originally a business side guy. Weaver might be the GM, but Miller probably would think he could wield a lot of influence as he seem to want to do. The Vulcans have seemed content with Miller but I am not sure how stable that really is now or will be in a year or so. In the end I think Allen and the Vulcans make the final call on a GM and I don't think it will be Weaver. But that is just my guess.

I think losing Weaver has much more potential to hurt the front office than losing Cho did. Many of Cho's positive qualities as a manager seem like things that Presti is already adept with. Weaver has a different kind of basketball mind.

It is not a great job to work with Roy who has low EQ,the worse thing is their owner always supports him.The poor Cho did great trade to help them but was fired because he didn't like Roy.

Brad :If he’s dumb enough to take a job with that organization after how they treated Cho and Pritchard I’m not sure we’d want to keep him.

I have to say that I agree. Portland seems good on paper, but there is a stinking carcass somewhere in the upper management which makes the whole organization have a bit of a stench about them.....

Pritchard made some mistakes, but he is a helluva talent evaluator; Cho, a very organized guy who somehow "didn't fit"???

I would say that Weaver will get other opportunities. He is a hot name that doesn't have to take this. Just like Presti was the hot name 4 or 5 years ago.

The quantity made was accompanied by a good 3 pt FG% in those victories. Quantity alone is probably not enough.

Their 2 victories against the Lakers in 2010 also averaged 7 3 pointers made. In the losses it was under 5. Not the only factor, but an important one.

The one victory against Dallas was tied for their most 3s made.

Against Dallas Westbrook was 2 for 10, Maynor 1 for 5.

If the 2011 Spurs had shot league average from 3 in the playoffs they would have been in a toss-up with the Griz. Shoot their regular season average they win. 5 for 23 from their PGs was a big part of that 3 pt shooting shortfall.

Taking the search back another 5 years to make a total of 10 title winners it is 8 with more than double the 3 pt attempts from the PG position, 1 with just 50% more (the 2005 Spurs) and 1 with a bit less. Take it back another 7 years 'til when the 3 pt. line was shortened and you will only find one more with as few attempts from the PGs as this past season's Thunder. So it is 15 title winners with significantly more 3 pt attempts from the PGs than the Thunder and 2 with about the same. You can be different at something and still win a title but bucking a really strong trend of title winners is at least something to think about.

Westbrook hasn't been consistently strong on the 3 pt shot, yet. He got hot in Feb.- March on about 1.5 attempts per game but had more bad months in the season (3-4 depending on what you cal bad) including April & the playoffs when he doubled his attempts but hit less than 30%.

Did Weaver and Presti not prioritize / tradeoff 3 pt shooting from the PG position to get other qualities? It seems so. That is what happened so far.

Looking at the 8 biggest 3 pt shooting teams on average they get 250% the 3pt attempts out of the PG position as the Thunder. Of those 8 teams the Thunder is most like (no surprise) the Spurs who got the lowest amount of 3pt attempts out of their PGs in that group. The Spurs were also fairly low in getting 3 pt attempts from their bigmen. The Thunder were too and without Green they would be the lower than any of them, just getting a few from Durant when he plays PF. The Thunder's 3 pt attack is more concentrated on wing players than any of these heavy users of the 3 pt shot. It probably makes it harder to spread the floor and easier to defend.

Of those 8 teams, 5 made the playoffs and 4 of those had 4 of the 5 highest 3 pt attempts from the PG position. The Spurs lagged. Got knocked out of the first round this season, lacking adequate offensive punch. Dallas was 2nd highest of 3 pt attempts from the PG position and they went on to win it all. The last 4 titlewinners have gotten more than twice the 3 pt attempts from the PG position. The 2006-7 Spurs got a little less from the PG position but has still top quarter on total team 3 pt attempts while the Thunder this season barely escaped the bottom 1/3rd on attempts.

Westbrook certainly brings some unique things, but at a cost of 3 pt frequency and accuracy. How important that is will be something to continue to watch over time. Hopefully he will come back with a better more consistent 3 pt shot.

If he's dumb enough to take a job with that organization after how they treated Cho and Pritchard I'm not sure we'd want to keep him.