[ProfessaPackMan]

A few things I'd like to breakdown:

-At first, I thought the whole Rebounding thing about him was some meme or joke that a blogger was making. But now I'm not sure whether to laugh or be stunned that it's in fact legit.

We're knocking him or basically saying his Rebounding average isn't that impressive because he's not down there boxing out 6'9/6'10 Big so therefore they're not "legit" and that his BIGS aren't the ones grabbing the rebounds, but we're going to knock HIM for that?

BUT, since we're on the discussion, I'll add to it:

Spoiler

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There has been much debate regarding the legitimacy of Russell’s Trip Dubs based on the uncontested % of his defensive rebounds. Taking a more detailed look into "where" and "how" he is getting his Drebs, should prove to be more informative. At the moment he leads the NBA as follows. There are a few things to note from the table. Russ has a low 12.7% contested DReb %. James, Durant and Harden have the next 3 lowest contested DReb% and play SF and SG. Russ, James, Durant and Harden have an average Dreb distance of 5.8 to 6.5. Both of these trends, i.e. playing positions and average dreb distance, seem to indicate a "Positional" factor. The other 12 players are Centers and P/F’s who have an average Dreb Distance of 4 ft and higher contested numbers because they are at the rim. This is a Screenshot from a Grantland article by Kirk Goldstein titled "How rebounds work," re Dreb distance. As you can see, Russ’s average Dreb distance puts him in the same vicinity as Lebron, Harden and Durant. Watching Russ’s Dreb videos, there are a few strategies that OKC employs to get him the Dreb. 1.Okc’s Bigs protect the sides of the rim. Russ sweeps the front, positioning as the top of the defensive box out triangle. Russ cleans up a lot of long shots out the front. This, " sweeping" the front of the triangle was a strategy OKC employed last season with Kevin Durant, with boxing out coming from Serge Ibaka and Steven Adams. KD would sweep the front and turn and take the ball up the court. Russ is now essentially playing both roles at 6’3". In 2015/16 KD was: KD had a higher uncontested Dreb% than what Russ has now in all four categories of Rebound Distance Range; i.e. 0-3, 3-6, 6-10 and 10+. If u look at Russ's 0-3 ft ( 2016/17), his uncontested Reb % is higher than KD's but his true uncontested Dreb % is 67.43%, which is lower than KD's. IN 2016/17 Russ is … This was a strategy OKC employed during last season and with KD leaving, Russ has taken KD’s role in Dreb as there has been a reduction in the rebounding distance for Russ. 2. If a Big, namely Adams, is away from the paint defending a screen or is drawn out of the paint by a Stretch 4/5 or the opposition is playing small, Russ will cover the opposite backside and clean up any mishandling by Bigs. This is a necessary strategy for Russ to do this, because OKC no longer have KD or Ibaka and Domantas Sabonis and Jerami Grant have been poor on the defensive boards. This rebounding strategy not only increases their rebounding rate, but helps OKC move the ball up the floor. Andre Roberson is tasked with guarding the best scorer on the opposing team, so it is not practical for him to have this rebounding role unless he is in close proximity for the Def reb.

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Comparisons have been made between James Harden and Russell Westbook's defensive rebounds and specifically the defensive rebounds off free throws that Russ gets. This is the True Uncontested Dreb% for Harden and Russ. Rebound Distance Range: HARDEN / RUSS 0-3ft 73% / 67.4% 3-6ft 79.3% / 76.2% 6-10ft 76.78% / 82.4% 10+ ft 55.7 % / 57.3% Russ’s % is higher than Harden's in the 6-10ft + area. This supports Russ "sweeping" the long rebs as argued in Part 1. Harden's % is higher than Russ’s in the 0-6ft area. This is the area of the Bigs. Shot Distance Range: HARDEN / RUSS 0-6ft 54.4% / 55.8% 7-13 ft 61.33 % / 70.76 % 13-19 ft 82.5 % / 77.5% 19 + ft 75.6 % / 76 % If u take the avg for both players in the 7- 19ft range, their figures are 72% and 74%. Both players are very similar in their %’s. Shot Type Range: HARDEN / RUSS Miss FTA 87.9% / 88.4% Miss 2FG 69 % / 67.7 % Miss 3FG 72.78 % / 76.2 % A lot of noise was made re Russ getting uncontested Drebs from free throws, but there is only a 0.5 % difference between Harden and Russ. Miss FG ’s are similar with a slight diff in Miss 3FG. In the 2015/16 season, OKC had the strategy of the Bigs boxing out which allowed KD to "sweep" the front of the defensive triangle and then turn to take the ball up the court in play. It was schematic and also allowed OKC to turn and play transitional offense. OKC had 2 players with low Contested Dreb%’s. KD had the 6th highest Uncontested Dreb% with a Contested Dreb % of 15.4%,and an average rebound distance of 5.8, which is typical for his position as SF. Russ had the 17th highest with a Contested Dreb % of 15%, and an average rebound distance of 7 ft, which is typical for his position as PG. When KD went to GSW, he left a big hole in OkC’s defensive rebounding scheme. Add to that, with Serge Ibaka being traded, that hole became bigger, with the prospect of Domantas Sabonis, Jerami Grant and Joffrey Lauvergne, filling the PF position. Russ, however, had other ideas, and took up the slack head on. He not only plays his PG role, but he is also covering what KD was doing in "sweeping" and positioning for def rebounds in OKC’s defensive scheme. This season, Russ’s average rebounding distance has dropped from 7ft to 5.8 ft ,which is KD’s rebounding distance. He is not doing it primarily for triple-doubles, but out of necessity, due to the gap left by KD and the inexperience and youth of the roster. and it is part of OKC’s scheme as highlighted by KD’s 2015/16 season. Now, Adams guards the opposing Big and Robes guards the best perimeter scorer. Who cleans up the front of the "defensive triangle" like KD used to? It has to be either Russ or Victor Oladipo. Of course, its Russ.

TL: DR - They're not doing anything different than what they did last year as far as rebounding and allowing their "non-Bigs" to grab,

-I knew that article was up to some funny stuff when I read this immediately:

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Some sleuth on Reddit put together an impressive collection of links attempting to prove that Westbrook’s rebounding numbers are so high … because he’s not playing defense.

The last 2-3 years, we just had 2 candidates who weren't known for even attempting to play Defense(Steph and Harden, ironically and lord knows we can find plenty of articles about how Steph pulling up half court 3s on the regular is hurting his team's defense but I digress)and now all of a sudden it matters now in an MVP race?

Some more tidbits:

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-"He pads his stats against bad teams" Let’s get this one out of the way first. The Thunder are 18-23 against teams currently in playoff positioning as of March 28th. Of Westbrook’s 37 triple doubles, 18 of them have come against playoff teams. In other words, nearly 49% of Westbrook’s triple doubles have come against teams in the top 53% of the NBA – not exactly the kind of drop-off against top talent that some may have you believe. Furthermore, Westbrook has triple doubled in 12 of OKC’s 18 wins against playoff teams, and only 6 times in OKC’s 23 losses. What does it all mean? The Thunder have won 44% of their games against playoff teams. When Westbrook posts a triple double, the chances of an OKC victory against playoff teams shoot all the way up to 67%. When he doesn’t, the chance of victory plummets to 22%. When OKC takes on a quality opponent, it’s on Russ to pull off a triple-double. When he does, they frequently win. When he doesn’t, they almost always lose. -"I saw on Twitter that Westbrook grabs 8.5 uncontested rebounds per game – do those even count?" Yes, they count. Of Westbrook’s 10.5 rebounds per game, 2.1 of them are contested and 8.5 of them aren’t, putting his contested rebounding percentage at 19.7%. What Twitter often fails to mention is that James Harden posts 1.7 contested and 6.3 contested rebounds per game, respectively – good for a 20.9 contested rebound percentage. So yes – 1.2% more of James Harden’s rebounds are contested. Cling to that 1.2% if you must, but Westbrook still pulls down 0.4 more contested rebounds per game, and 1.8 more uncontested rebounds per game. Additionally Westbrook’s 2.1 contested rebounds per game equals that of Marc Gasol – you know, the former Defensive Player of the Year – and is a higher number than LeBron’s 2.0 average. -"They lose sometimes because he shoots too much" The classic anti-Westbrook argument. The only problem is that, at least this year, it isn’t completely true. Yes, there is a relatively strong 0.41 correlation between Westbrook’s assist totals and OKC wins, but there is actually a negative correlation (-0.29) between his shot attempts and assists. What does this mean? The Thunder DO win when Russ racks up assists, but those assists DO NOT come as the result of him shooting less. Even his raw field goal attempt numbers have a negative correlation (-0.16) when paired with Thunder wins. The takeaway? Westbrook’s shot attempts, statistically speaking, have little-to-no impact on game outcomes, and even when he does take more shots, it is not at the expense of getting more assists. Assists dry up because teammates miss shots, and not because Russell takes them. -"His assist numbers are inflated because he only passes when an assist is possible" There have been rumblings of this over the years, and a quick visit to NBA.com shows that Russ has a 17.1 assist-to-pass percentage (in other words, 17.1% of his passes are assists). That number falls right between John Wall’s 18.2% and James Harden’s 16.9% – numbers from two players who receive no such criticism.

FWIW, I think Harden will win MVP and I won't have any issue with it and think he deserves it just as much as Westbrook does. But the arguments I see people using against Westbrook in a way to make what he's doing seem like it's actually "not that impressive", I'm actually surprised the ones using the Rebounding argument didn't do any research to see why that's the case.

Now if folks want to make the case that he's a chucker, I'd be on your side....because I know that who he is and always has been. But I do know that if this was Lebron doing this.....there would be crickets compared to Russ and OJ would be here talking about how they should name the MVP Trophy after him, lol.