Wednesday Bolts – 12.17.14
KD on Kobe: “Excuse my language, but that’s (expletive). “I want to play with a winner every single night, especially somebody who wants to win that bad, who works that hard, who demands a lot, who raises up your level. I’d want to play with a guy like that every day. … (His style) may make people uncomfortable, how he acts and just how he approaches the game, but I love that type of stuff. I think (the accusation) is BS.”
Russell Peddle of NumberFire: “There’s bound to be some regression as the season rolls along, but it still shouldn’t be ignored that Westbrook is currently posting career highs in rate of win shares per 48 minutes (.298), player efficiency rating (33.1), offensive rating (115), defensive rating (99), true shooting percentage (59.7%), total rebound percentage (10.8%), and assist percentage (52.1%), all while posting the highest usage rate of his career (39.2) and taking the most shots per-36 (21.6) (all aforementioned advanced statistics explained here). He’s doing absolutely everything on the floor and doing it all well. To wit, the Thunder have a +10.6 net rating (107.3 offensive, 96.7 defensive) in the 294 minutes he’s been on the floor and a -3.1 (96.8 offensive, 99.8 defensive) in the 863 he’s been off.”
A rousing game of Trade, Max, Amnesty.
Zach Lowe of Grantland likes the finger wag: “The league has tried to outlaw this, but I love that Ibaka does it anyway. He is the rightful inheritor of the Mutombo finger-wag in just about every way. Keep doing it, Serge!”
Fabolous wants to rap with KD.
Shoals for GQ on Melo: “And then there’s Melo, who seems both incapable of caring too much (like, say, Kobe) or not caring at all. He’s an elite player and perennial All-Star whose contract somehow feels like an albatross. Anthony isn’t a paradox or a riddle, he’s just not quite the player the world needs him to be. Because of that, he’s stuck. And the Knicks are stuck with him.”
If you missed it: I wrote a big thing on Kendrick Perkins.
Anthony Slater: “He’s playing with a controlled chaos that’s so rare. He’s darting to the rim with that same breakneck speed, but routinely maneuvering around the basket with a smoothness we’re not used to and tossing in feathery layups with either hand. His shot selection has always been criticized. His efficiency has always been used as an argument against him. But that’s not a crutch his biggest skeptics can lean on right now. Westbrook, again, was economical with his usage on Tuesday night: 20 shots, 11 makes, 32 points (to go along with his usual seven assists, six rebounds and four steals). In his career, Westbrook is a 43 percent shooter. But this season, he’s currently at 49.5 percent. Some would suggest he’s due for a regression to the norm. But others would view this as a different, improved Westbrook — the kind of dynamic yet efficient player who can make a legit case as the league’s best player.”
Vivek Ranadive is weird: “Defense is great, but we need defense and offense,” he said. “We need to go from a rules-based organization, which was important when you had chaos, to a values-based organization. From kind of a programmatic offense, to a read-and-respond, free-flowing offense. I like to use a music metaphor. We had a Sousa marching band, which was needed when there was chaos, but now we need to shift to a jazz band, where people can be individually showcased and improvised. What we need is a jazz director. I think that’s the kind of leadership moving forward.”
