Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant: Thunder's MVP Candidate Not Who You Think
Before the 2010-2011 season started, everyone was predicting that the MVP would hail from the Oklahoma City Thunder.
He is young, he is destined to be a star and he has played for his country during the FIBA World Championships.
It turns out that two players from the OKC fit that description, and the experts have been picking the wrong one.
Kevin Durant was the man before the season started, but thanks to both his shooting woes and the improved play of Russell Westbrook, the latter has been more of an MVP candidate than the former.
(Note: Statistics from ESPN.com and hoopdata.com)
Russell Westbrook: Scoring
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Westbrook is averaging 23.8 points per game on a career-high 44.7% from the field.
The real reason for his scoring prowess has been his ability to get to the free throw line. So far this year, a quarter of the way through the season, Westbrook has forced his way to the charity stripe 9.2 times per game.
That's Dwight Howard territory right there.
He's also making 8.2 of those attempts per game, leaving him shooting 88.6% from the line, which is definitely not Dwight Howard territory.
One area of his game that still needs improvement is his three-point shooting. Westbrook is making 0.3 threes a game on 28.6% shooting.
Kevin Durant: Scoring
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Unlike his point guard, who has experienced a massive uptick in scoring this season, Durant has seen his shooting abilities decline.
After leading the league in scoring at 30.1 points per game last year, Durant's average has dipped to 27.3 points per game.
The problem is that he's shooting more than last year, yet still making less shots. He's taken 0.9 more shots per game, while making 0.8 less. That's caused his field goal percentage to drop, from 47.6% to 41.9% FG.
Durant is also taking more three-pointers than he's shot in his career, but he's only making 26.7% of his attempts.
As for free throws, he's shooting 91.5% from the line on 8.9 attempts per game. The percentage is up but the attempts are down, rendering his contribution from the line less valuable than it was last year.
Russell Westbrook: Rebounding
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Even though point guards don't traditionally crash the boards to the same extent as other positions, Westbrook has still managed to both chase and pull down an incredible number of rebounds.
In his three year career, Westbrook has always been quite adept at rebounding, so it's not like this season is a fluke.
The UCLA product is averaging 1.5 offensive rebounds per game, which happens to be the lowest total of his career, but he's balancing those numbers with a career-high 3.6 defensive rebounds per game.
The total, 5.1 rebounds per game, is the highest total of his career.
Kevin Durant: Rebounding
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Just like we've seen his scoring drop this season, we've witnessed a decline in his rebounding stats.
Durant, after pulling down 7.6 boards a game last year, has seen that total fall to 6.9 per game. Now, 6.9 is very good for a lanky small forward, but we know that Durant can do better because we've seen him do better.
Durant, particularly, has room for improvement on the offensive glass, where he's only averaging 0.9 rebounds per game. The vast majority of his contributions in this statistic has come on the defensive end of the floor.
Russell Westbrook: Assists and Turnovers
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It's essential for any good point guard to both minimize turnovers and maximize assists.
After all, you win games when you keep the ball and score during your possessions.
This marks the third straight season that Westbrook has improved his number of assists, making a staggering leap from 5.3 to 8.0 per game between his rookie season and second season. This season, he's jumped up to 8.6 per game.
However, his turnover rate has also increased and has risen to 3.5 per game. The thing is though, that number is insignificant without context.
Westbrook has been on the floor more this year, and has been handling the ball more than ever. To really get a true estimate of his ball-handling contributions, we have to look at his assist/turnover ratio.
This year it's 2.21, which is slightly lower than his sophomore ratio.
Kevin Durant: Assists and Turnovers
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Durant is a complete basketball player, so, even though he isn't a point guard, he's still blessed with great ball-handling and passing skills when he chooses to utilize them.
This is the third straight season that Durant has averaged 2.8 assists per game, but his turnover numbers have gone up. In fact, they've risen every year that he's been in the league.
During his rookie season, Durant averaged 2.9 per game, and in his following seasons 3.0, 3.3 and now 3.5.
In fact, Durant has yet to post an assist/turnover ratio of more than one. It's one area of his game that could improve.
Russell Westbrook: Defensive Stats
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Westbrook has been more valuable to his team because of his stealing ability.
The point guard has always been quite good at committing thievery, as he's averaged 1.3 steals per game in both of his first two seasons.
This season though, Westbrook has taken his dishonest ways to a whole new level, stealing the ball from the opposing team 2.2 times per game.
He's also not bad at blocking shots for a point guard. Westbrook has blocked 0.4 shots per game so far this year.
Kevin Durant: Defensive Stats
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Durant is posting very close to his career averages in both blocks and steals.
With his long arms and frame, the small forward can reach around offensive players to steal the ball while they're dribbling, get in passing lanes, pick off passes and reject shots aimed at his basket.
It all adds up to the current tune of 1.2 steals per game and 1.0 blocks per game.
While neither category really makes him stand out, the combined force of his defensive presence helps make the Thunder a very good defensive team.
Conclusion
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As we saw, while Kevin Durant was injured and Westbrook led the team to a few upset wins, the team definitely has two superstars.
Based on the traditional basketball stats, Westbrook has actually been the better overall player. More advanced basketball statistics exist that prove this as well, but they're quite complicated. If anyone has a desire to discuss them, please contact me and I'd be more than happy to do so.
All in all, the experts got it right when they said that there was an MVP candidate playing for the Thunder.
It's Russell Westbrook.
