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Last week I attempted to characterize Kevin Durant’s shooting behavior, with and without Russell Westbrook on the court. The general takeaway was that KD’s Hunting Grounds reduce and disappear with Russ on the floor — rather drastically. However, analyzing one side of the coin only takes us so far in understanding the complex dynamics of a five-player offense. Thus, we are left with the corollary question: what happens to Westbrook’s shooting spaces when he shares the court with Durant? What, if anything, does this tell us about the Oklahoma City Thunder offense?
Similar to last week, this is not an indictment on play style, so we’re not here to discuss — as tempting as it may be — this:
And especially not this:
But rather, this:
A brief refresher: these Hunting Grounds highlight the areas on the court Russell Westbrook has been most successful over the course of his career. If all things remain constant (which they never exactly do), we would expect RWB to continue to pile on points from these locations game after game, in a reasonably predictable manner. Russell Westbrook, the Scoring Predator, is an absolute terror at the rim; clearly his most productive location on the floor. Aside from point-blank range, he speckles the court around the foul line, clustering at the elbows, and just barely from one of the three-point wings. This is not the Contemporary Point Guard Prototype that is beginning to emerge in the likes of Steph Curry and John Wall, descending from Steve Nash. Those three are generally more balanced between the rim, the elbows, and the above-the-break threes.
Case in point, the percentage of career shot attempts taken within three feet of the rim indicates RWB is the most aggressive:
- Steph Curry: 15%
- Steve Nash: 20%
- John Wall: 32%
- Russell Westbrook: 35%
However, last season marks a bit of a shift in Westbrook’s shot behavior:
There’s a couple of significant tidbits buried in those blue and orange swaths. Russ only took 33 shots without KD in the lineup. Thirty-three. He did only play in 46 games last year, hindered by offseason knee surgery following a playoff injury; however…thirty-three shots. Naturally, his Hunting Grounds did not change much with/without Durant: only 7.6% of RWB’s Hunting Grounds disappeared when he shares the court with KD last season. Compare that to KD’s roughly 50% disappearing act, and it’s a microscopic change. When we combine those metrics in the form of color, here’s how they scored as a tandem:
That mustard color, where the green meets the orange, is where they score from the same areas. While 22% seems like a lot (and it is: the back-to-back champion Heat teams had similar overlap for their entire starting lineup), here’s the kicker: this overlap may just be a good (great?!) thing for these players, in this offense. In potentially related news, the Thunder won 59 games last season. In an offense many have tried to understand, maybe — just maybe — it’s predicated on simply having your best scorers score from the same areas on the court.
Fast-forward to this season, and look at how Russ’s shots have changed:
Russ seems to be balancing his scoring across his three key areas (rim, elbows, above-the-break threes) more than ever (the blue). He’s also taking up a ton of space — nearly 4.5% of the court. Of his 672 total shots, only 289 (43%) are with KD on the court (the orange). While that’s a drastic difference from last season, there’s been plenty of injury issues clouding the picture. More importantly, when Durant is on the floor with Westbrook, Russ is losing ground — to the tune of a 46% loss of space. Further, their tag-team overlap is cut in half:
So in 2014-2015 we have Russ taking up more space, KD taking up less space, less overlap between the two, and a middling 24-24 record — a formula good enough for a lottery pick.
So What?
First and foremost, correlation does not mean causality. While these patterns in shot behavior are troubling, they are not necessarily the sole cause (or any cause, for that matter) of the Thunder’s issues this season. However, these are pretty extreme changes: Westbrook is nearly tripling his scoring space, and Durant is losing ground. The scalding hot notion that Westbrook is taking shot opportunities away from Durant may have some merit. While it’s not bad for Westbrook to dominate the court, it’s not good for him to occupy as much territory as he has been this season. In theory, the corrective actions should be twofold: a) keep the duo on the court together as much as possible, and b) get Durant some shots. The location of those shots should resemble the places were Durant typically flourishes and where Westbrook has been productive this season; most notably the three-point line at both wings, and even some space on the blocks (imagine OKC running the triangle). In practice, increasing shot overlap could amount to turn-taking offensive sets. Is that really the answer? Oddly, in the absence of installing an entirely new offensive scheme, it just may be.
Data and photo support provided courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball-Reference, and data extraordinaire Darryl Blackport.