Chris Paul is a better PG of Westbrook’s Era to not win a title.
Steve Nash too.
And of the generation before, Stockton
+ Penny + Lillard
Much more talented and team friendly guys.
I'm still sad about what could have been with Penny. Poor guy. 20/7/4/2 shooting over 50% from the field over back-to-back seasons as a 23-24 year old is crazy.
Really just goes to show how Westbrook is probably fighting to be in the top 8-10 for players who never won a ring
Yes, but all the same you can’t put Penny over Westbrook all-time. Getting on the court is a skill unto itself, and Westbrook through age 29 has already played a half season’s worth of games more than Penny did for his career that ended at age 36. Even if we take for granted that Penny was better than Russ when healthy, which is debatable, Russ’ health completely wins the rest of the argument barring something catastrophic in the next year or so.
Oh yeah, I definitely don't think you can rank Penny above RW. Just sort of letting my tangential thoughts run wild on this one, lol.
I also dunno about Lillard over Westbrook
I would much rather have Penny for 5 years and then have 40 mil of extra cap space to build around. But we value things differently.
Lillard is a better leader by miles in my book, better scorer, better off ball, IMO will age better too even though he is smaller.
EDIT:
If we rename the thread to:
Westbrook is destined to become the best PAID player to never win a title
He could be the one.
18-19 - $35,350,000
19-20 - $38,178,000
20-21 - $41,006,000
21-22 - $43,848,000
22-23 - $46,662,000
Keep in mind that he is extremely reliant on his physicality, like say Dwight Howard (who BTW got his team to finals and was a top 5 player in the league for a few years), this contact could be the mother of all albatrosses.