Nylon Calculus: Is Westbrook’s ball dominance hampering the Thunder?

With news of Paul George resigning with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the questions of the legitimacy of the Thunder’s title chances are increasingly difficult to answer. While it would be reasonable to assume that a team with an MVP winner in his prime, as well two complementary stars in the aforementioned George and Steven Adams would have as good a chance as anybody at surviving the west. However, the ascendance of the Golden State Warriors, and to a lesser extent, the Houston Rockets leave us wondering exactly how much of a shot the Thunder have.

While some of the questions about the future certainly reside in the ultimate resolution of where  Carmelo Anthony will end up and exactly what sort of deal it will entail, the polarizing Russell Westbrook and his absurd ball dominance seen to be at least as big an issue for the Thunder to wrestle with.

Westbrook, who led the league in both field goal attempts and assists in the 2017-18 season, has long been known as a player who needs the ball in his hand. The following assist diagram shows exactly how much of the Thunder’s offense ran through him last season.

There is no denying that Westbrook puts up staggering numbers on a nightly basis, becoming the second player ever to average a triple-double over the course of a season in 2016-17, and then repeating that feat last season. Whether or not the extreme number of possessions Westbrook requires to put up these sort of numbers is healthy for the team’s overall offense is another question.

While there are multiple ways to examine efficiency, the first hypothesis to look at is whether or not teams are capable of thriving with so much of the offense flowing through one player. The following is a chart of team points per possession  against the highest usage rate on the team during the previous season. The data for this graph can be found here, though it will require a bit of wrangling to get in the desired format.

Noticeably, the the upper echelon of NBA offenses consisted of six teams, the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Raptors, Warriors, Cavaliers and Rockets. The Nuggets and Timberwolves employed the most egalitarian approach, whereas the Rockets’ commitment to running their offense through the hyper efficient Harden is obvious. Interestingly, this upper crust of teams contains both the most and least centralized offenses, suggesting that ball dominance of a team’s most featured player isn’t really all that indicative of an offense’s effectiveness for better or for worse. (If, like me, the 76ers being the second most centralized offense caught you by surprise, know that its actually Joel Embiid posting the high water mark for usage, and not Ben Simmons.)

Since Westbrook’s large share of the Thunder offense appears to not be all that much of a problem in a vacuum, the next step is to actually evaluate Westbrook’s production as compared to his usage. The following is offensive rating by usage rate for all players with more than 10 minutes played per game with at least 30 percent of their team’s assists while on the floor. Basically, this is all of the high assist players with a significant amount of minutes. The data for this graph can be found here.

As you can see, while Westbrook is on the upper echelons’ of both offensive rating and usage, his offensive rating is not below average compared to what would be expected of a player of his usage, though it does lag behind Lebron James and James Harden, the two players on each side of him. This observation feels like both a positive and a negative, in that while there is no shame not being able to match the offensive efficiency of two of the best players in the league, it would suggest that since Westbrook isn’t able to, he probably shouldn’t have the ball in his hands as much as them.

Offensive rating at a player level is fundamentally how much offense a player generates per possession, given that there are basically two ways to generate offense, as a scorer and as a passer, we will evaluate how Westbrook does compared to his peers in each of these categories. The following two graphs show Westbrook’s usage as compared to the assists that he generates amongst his high usage peers.

Assist percentage is the portion of a team’s assists generate by that player while out on the floor. As you can see by the first graph, Russell generates an absurd number of field goals for his teammates while out on the floor, even with respect to his high usage rate, easily leading the league. Russell is able to generate a higher portion of his team’s offense than either Lebron James or James Harden, who are on his left and right on both graphs.

The second graph illustrates a notion long known to most serious NBA fans, that increased volume generally decreases efficiency. While Westbrook experiences a similarly negative downward trend of assists per turnover by usage as most other players in the league, Westbrook actually rates above Harden and is tied with James in assists per turnover according to ESPN, again the two players on either side of him. Though his overall assist per turnover ratio is nothing special and is matched or beaten by a number of players, that Westbrook is able to maintain his level of production considering his usage is quite impressive.

While Westbrook is known as a good passer, the fact that he is able to generate teammate field goals more efficiently than Harden and equal to James is probably underappreciated. At the same time, though Westbrook rates out well as a passer, his shooting leaves a bit to be desired. The following is a graph of of the same high usage player’s true shooting percentage versus field goal attempts.

In this graph Westbrook’s flaws are a bit more apparent. While he attempts shots at a rate exceeding even Harden, he makes shots at a clip more similar to Dennis Schroder or John Wall, who are the two points closest to the left of Westbrook on this chart. Westbrook’s true shooting percentage of 52.4 percent is well below the league average of 55.6 percent. Considering his monstrous usage and and respectable, though not exceptional offensive rating, the previous three charts portray Westbrook as a moderately efficient, incredibly high volume player. Below average shooting and above average passing round out to a roughly average offensive rating. This may sound like damning with faint praise, but considering the state of the Thunder’s offense, Westbrook feels oddly suited to lead them.

With Carmelo Anthony appearing to be on his way out and defensive stud Andre Roberson returning from injury, the Thunder have a chance to establish themselves as an elite defensive squad. The foursome of George, Westbrook, Adams and Roberson, all presumable starters next year, posted an offensive rating of 107.7 and defensive rating of 94.6. That defensive rating actually ranks as the fifth-best grouping in the league, behind one lineup each from the Wolves and Pistons, and two Jazz groupings. While the offensive rating is slightly below the league average of 108.6, the defensive rating is so incredibly good that this foursome’s net 13.1 rating is actually right on par with Curry, Thompson, Durant and Green’s mark of 13.3 and slightly ahead of Ariza, Harden, Paul and Capela’s mark of 8.0. This is not to say that the Thunder are right on par with the Warriors and Rockets, though Ariza’s departure and Capela’s uncertain future may call Houston into question, but if the Thunder with Roberson in the fold are truly capable of being a defensive juggernaut, they might not be as far behind as most people are inclined to believe.

With the power forward position still being a question mark heading into next season and Roberson being something of a non factor as a scorer, the trio of Adams, George and Westbrook will have to lead the way offensively for the Thunder. While Adams is able to get to the basket, the following charts demonstrates his relative inflexibility.

As his offense relies primarily on the pick and roll, cuts and incredible offensive rebounding, Adams is dependent on facilitators to help him generate offense. Given that half of Westbrook’s assists are distributed to the much more efficient Adams and George and that the starting lineup around him isn’t going to be prone to initiating much offense aside from George, a high volume, moderately efficient scorer does raise the floor of the Thunder offense.

Westbrook still needs to restrain his shot chucking ways as him leading the league in field goal attempts is probably handicapping the ceiling of the Thunder offense, his league-leading 19.2 drives per game and 49.6 field goal percentage on these types of shots, well above the NBA average of 46.2%, imply that he is not incapable of volume scoring at a more efficient clip if he tones down the jumpers.

Next: Big men are getting under-valued in free agency

With Carmelo Anthony on the way out, the exact composition of the starting lineup isn’t yet set in stone, but it would appear barring something dramatic, the Thunder will not be filling the void with a dominant offensive player. Ultimately the Thunder offense has a set amount of possessions to be used, and though he could probably cede more of them to George, Westbrook is still the right choice to receive a lion’s share of them. While nobody is lining up to pick the Thunder as title favorites in 2019, the potential to hang with anybody on the strength of a stout defense and good enough offense is there.