Say OKC gets booted , would they trade Westbrook for Rondo then ? and would you?

[CoachBo]

That's possible -- I just think a lot of people get caught up in the Saint Kevin Durant thing and demonize Westbrook (despite the fact that the team is unarguably better with Westbrook on the Court).

So I ask;  with both players playing at their best, do you think "Russell Westbrook is a way better player than Rondo"?

I don't agree with that statement.  And, it has nothing to do with "demonizing" Westbrook or any kind of "Saint Kevin Durant" thing.

Russell Westbrook is a way better player than Rondo.

That's my opinion, no doubt.

Right.

Sam Presti has clearly been fleeced by Ainge before.

But the poor guy might kill himself laughing if Ainge offered Rondo for Westbrook.

[moiso]

A lot of you don't love PER, but for what it's worth Rondo's career high PER was 19.  Westbrook had a 25 this year, in which he was recovering from injuries.

[slamtheking]

I think the offer would intrigue both teams. 

I don't OKC would do it without some other shooters for rondo to pass to first.  love or hate westbrook's play making, he does bear a lot of the scoring burden.  further proof, IMHO, OKC should have moved Westbrook and kept Harden and just replaced Westbrook with a more traditional PG that was pass-first and had a respectable jumper.

Westbrook's offense would certainly help the C's scoring woes right now but I don't see Westbrook as a PG that involves his teammates or makes them better.  love him or hate him, Rondo does do that better than almost any other PG.

[Celtics18]

I feel like a lot of this depends on perspective.  The current series between Memphis and OKC actually provides a nice test case for this argument.  I feel like Mike Conley is playing great basketball in the series and provides a lot of the same kinds of things for Memphis that Rondo provides for the Celtics. 

I also feel like Conley is outplaying Russell Westbrook so far in this series.  What they provide for their respective teams is totally different, and I'm sure there are many who prefer the kind of offensive aggression that Westbrook provides to the steady and heady play of Conley. 

I think much of that comes down to personal preference.  If you swapped the two point guards in that series, my guess is that they would still be deadlocked at 1 to 1 right now. 

[PhoSita]

I also feel like Conley is outplaying Russell Westbrook so far in this series.  What they provide for their respective teams is totally different, and I'm sure there are many who prefer the kind of offensive aggression that Westbrook provides to the steady and heady play of Conley. 

Conley is playing well, although neither of them is shooting very well (40%).

I don't know how OKC would get enough points on the board to win games if they swapped Westbrook for Conley, though.  Westbrook is scoring 9 points a game more than Westbrook in the series so far. 

OKC is just not built to spread out the offensive load.  The roster is designed to have Durant and Westbrook combine for 50-60 points.

[D.o.s.]

I also feel like Conley is outplaying Russell Westbrook so far in this series.  What they provide for their respective teams is totally different, and I'm sure there are many who prefer the kind of offensive aggression that Westbrook provides to the steady and heady play of Conley. 

Conley is playing well, although neither of them is shooting very well (40%).

I don't know how OKC would get enough points on the board to win games if they swapped Westbrook for Conley, though.  Westbrook is scoring 9 points a game more than Westbrook in the series so far. 

OKC is just not built to spread out the offensive load.  The roster is designed to have Durant and Westbrook combine for 50-60 points.

Not just their roster -- their offense, too. It's why Reggie Jackson was found money when Westbrook went down last year -- even though he's not in the same zip code as westbrook, he can create scoring opportunities for himself in a way that the team relies on from it's point guard.

[kraidstar]

first let me say that we should give memphis plenty of credit for making the thunder look worse than they are, which leads to these questions about westbrook - memphis is a flawed team, but they can beat anyone (and watching them, it makes me think that ainge's biggest mistake was not resigning tony allen).
i think OKC can't afford to downgrade one of their stars, the time for that would have come when they had more assets to spread around, maybe they could have gotten rondo and kept harden. that team would probably be better than the one they're fielding now.
OKC is who we thought they were - a team with 2 exceptionally talented perimeter players who dominate the ball but often fail to get their teammates involved. and as great a scorer as westbrook is, i don't think he's an exceptional ball distributor. OKC doesn't get the ball inside enough - and, arguably, they don't have anyone to give the ball to anyways. aside from their top-2, and maybe jackson, the rest of the team is a little passive offensively, which leads to a lot of perimeter shots. they need another slasher (like harden), or some kind of post player to open up the floor.
presti's biggest mistake was giving serge ibaka star money, that led to them trading harden, IMO.
and while they certainly had a need for a good big man, ibaka puts up stats but isn't the kind of "quarterback", like noah, KG, or marc gasol, that takes the whole team D up a notch. if you watch ibaka closely, he sells out on a lot of plays for blocks/boards/etc. he's just not as intelligent as the true elite big men are. he also has little offensive game inside. half the time he's on the court  i don't even notice he's there.
let's flash back to 2011. at the time, OKC had jeff green, harden, ibaka, and the clips top-10 protected first-rounder (which at the time looked like a much better pick than it turned out to be, after the CP3 trade).
now they have an overpaid ibaka, a badly overpaid perkins, and jeremy lamb. presti has really botched things pretty badly (though he drafts well), the thunder are good, but there's a decent chance they'll never win it all. maybe they should have used those pieces to put together a more ambitious package for a truly elite player instead,  someone would have bitten.
and i wonder if the team was still in seattle if they could have gone further over the cap?

[PhoSita]

I also feel like Conley is outplaying Russell Westbrook so far in this series.  What they provide for their respective teams is totally different, and I'm sure there are many who prefer the kind of offensive aggression that Westbrook provides to the steady and heady play of Conley. 

Conley is playing well, although neither of them is shooting very well (40%).

I don't know how OKC would get enough points on the board to win games if they swapped Westbrook for Conley, though.  Westbrook is scoring 9 points a game more than Westbrook in the series so far. 

OKC is just not built to spread out the offensive load.  The roster is designed to have Durant and Westbrook combine for 50-60 points.

Not just their roster -- their offense, too. It's why Reggie Jackson was found money when Westbrook went down last year -- even though he's not in the same zip code as westbrook, he can create scoring opportunities for himself in a way that the team relies on from it's point guard.

Right.  They rely on having a couple of guys who will look for their own offense while penetrating into the paint.  They're a much different (and worse) team when Durant is the only guy who can be aggressive in that way.

[footey]

IF OKC gets bounced before the finals, which is quite possible, I think they will have to look seriously to make a fundamental change.  The obvious guy to trade would be Westbrook; Durant ain't going anywhere, and trading any of the other guys would not be meaningful.

I can't think of a more logical alternative to Westbrooks than Rondo.  I could see Rondo agreeing to extend his contract, which would make him more valuable trading piece, because OKC is a major contender, and his best buddy, Perkins, plays there.  I could even see Rondo taking less than a max extension, so we could get rid of some extra payroll in the process by throwing in another guy.  If Rondo would agree to sign to less than max deal, I could see this being an even exchange.  Any slight differences could be resolved with a restricted first round pick, maybe Philly's protected pick next season, which converts to a 2nd if it is a lottery pick.

Getting Westbrooks makes it more attractive to draft a kid like Gordon who is a weak shooter, since our PG spot would also be a great outside shooter.  You generally don't want to have more than 1 bad outside shooter in your starting line-up, 2 if you have a stud center like Howard or Shaq.

[D.o.s.]

Except there's really no reason for Rondo to extend his contract, rather than becoming a free agent and resigning with the Celtics.

[BballTim]

I also feel like Conley is outplaying Russell Westbrook so far in this series.  What they provide for their respective teams is totally different, and I'm sure there are many who prefer the kind of offensive aggression that Westbrook provides to the steady and heady play of Conley. 

Conley is playing well, although neither of them is shooting very well (40%).

I don't know how OKC would get enough points on the board to win games if they swapped Westbrook for Conley, though.  Westbrook is scoring 9 points a game more than Westbrook in the series so far. 

OKC is just not built to spread out the offensive load.  The roster is designed to have Durant and Westbrook combine for 50-60 points.

  I don't think they had any problems scoring with Westbrook out of the lineup this year.

[D.o.s.]

^That's probably true, but small sample size eats up most of the westbrook-less lineups. They also had Kevin Durant in beast mode, which I'm not sure is a reliable thing in the post season.

http://stats.nba.com/teamLineups.html?TeamID=1610612760&pageNo=1&rowsPerPage=25&sortField=MIN&sortOrder=DES&PerMode=Totals&columnOrder=&MeasureType=Advanced

The playoff stats are too wonky to really look at right now, unfortunately.

[BballTim]

IF OKC gets bounced before the finals, which is quite possible, I think they will have to look seriously to make a fundamental change.  The obvious guy to trade would be Westbrook; Durant ain't going anywhere, and trading any of the other guys would not be meaningful.

I can't think of a more logical alternative to Westbrooks than Rondo.  I could see Rondo agreeing to extend his contract, which would make him more valuable trading piece, because OKC is a major contender, and his best buddy, Perkins, plays there.  I could even see Rondo taking less than a max extension, so we could get rid of some extra payroll in the process by throwing in another guy.  If Rondo would agree to sign to less than max deal, I could see this being an even exchange.  Any slight differences could be resolved with a restricted first round pick, maybe Philly's protected pick next season, which converts to a 2nd if it is a lottery pick.

Getting Westbrooks makes it more attractive to draft a kid like Gordon who is a weak shooter, since our PG spot would also be a great outside shooter.  You generally don't want to have more than 1 bad outside shooter in your starting line-up, 2 if you have a stud center like Howard or Shaq.

   Westbrook isn't a great outside shooter, he's a little below average.

[Endless Paradise]

It's definitely better for Jeremy Lamb or Perry Jones to play with Rondo. A healthy Rondo is a better defender. Rondo also does very well against the Heat and Bulls.

It's better for Lamb and Jones to play with Rondo?  Based on what?  You realize they wouldn't even be playing with Rondo since Brooks refuses to play them anyway, right?

And why does it matter as it pertains to OKC if Rondo plays well against the Heat or Bulls?  The Thunder only see those two teams twice a season.

The simple fact of the matter is that the move OKC would make, if any, if they were bounced out of the playoffs early would be firing Scott Brooks.  It would make no kind of sense to retain Brooks while making an insane panic move like trading away a top 10 player who's only 25 years old just because of playoff disappointment.  They would easily fire Brooks before getting rid of Westbrook.

[Eja117]

It's definitely better for Jeremy Lamb or Perry Jones to play with Rondo. A healthy Rondo is a better defender. Rondo also does very well against the Heat and Bulls.

It's better for Lamb and Jones to play with Rondo?  Based on what?  You realize they wouldn't even be playing with Rondo since Brooks refuses to play them anyway, right?

And why does it matter as it pertains to OKC if Rondo plays well against the Heat or Bulls?  The Thunder only see those two teams twice a season.

The simple fact of the matter is that the move OKC would make, if any, if they were bounced out of the playoffs early would be firing Scott Brooks.  It would make no kind of sense to retain Brooks while making an insane panic move like trading away a top 10 player who's only 25 years old just because of playoff disappointment.  They would easily fire Brooks before getting rid of Westbrook.

Did you just ask why it would be better for Lamb and Jones to play with Rondo? Really?