Russell Westbrook: Don’t Forget His Supporting Cast

By Sipho Mangoye | Mar 10, 2015

Dec 3, 2013; Sacramento, CA, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder power forward Serge Ibaka (9) high fives point guard Russell Westbrook (0) after a basket against the Sacramento Kings during the third quarter at Sleep Train Arena. The Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Sacramento Kings 97-95. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /

While Russell Westbrook has been making all the headlines for the Oklahoma City Thunder lately, the team’s success has hardly been a one-man effort. Sure, he is the leader of the pack, but he has had a lot of help and it’s time we recognized the efforts of his teammates — and there are two that stand out.

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Without Kevin Durant in the picture, Serge Ibaka has stepped up. Until Feb. 1, Ibaka was averaging 14 points 7.6 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game. In the 16 games since then, he has bumped his numbers up to 15 points, 8.6 rebounds and 3.4 rejections a game.

Furthermore, he has become a much more efficient scorer – at least from within the arc – as his field goal accuracy is now up from 45.9 percent to over 53 percent.

A big reason for that is because he has been playing inside the arc a lot more in recent times. Prior to February and Durant’s absence, Ibaka was hoisting up nearly four 3s per contest and, to be fair, he was hitting a fair few of them as shown by his 40 percent accuracy. However, his overall efficiency was suffering.

Now, he is taking fewer 3s and making an effort to get inside and terrorize his defenders, which has resulted in some extra trips to the free-throw line, going from 1.5 attempts to 2.3 per game.

While that may not sound like a lot, that slight bump will be huge over an extended period of time. Plus, it’s an easy way to rack up easy points – just ask Westbrook, who now leads the league in scoring because he gets to the charity stripe on a regular basis.

In addition to Ibaka being aggressive, the change in partners at center has also helped him somewhat.

For a while now, Oklahoma City has been after a big man who could provide some consistent scoring from the low post.

Their search lead them to the Brooklyn Nets’ doorstep hoping to agree a deal for Brook Lopez along with his bloated contract (owed $15.7 million this year and $16.7 million next year) and his historically injury prone body (has played just 147 games in the past four seasons).

Fortunately, that deal didn’t go through and OKC wound up with Enes Kanter; a cheaper player without the injury history and is just as productive.

He has seemingly taken over Steven Adams‘ role as the starting 5 and had great chemistry with everyone, right from the beginning of his time with the Thunder.

He and Westbrook make for a mean combo on the pick-and-roll, plus his scoring ability has meant that Serge Ibaka gets less attention from defenders because he is also a handful to deal with – averaging 14 points on 56 percent shooting in addition to 9.3 assists and nearly two assists in just 28 minutes of action in his first eight games.

The addition of outside shooters has also been a huge help to the team and Russell Westbrook’s bid for the Most Valuable Player trophy. Prior to February, the Thunder were the fourth-worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA at 31.8 percent.

Since then, the additions of players such as D.J. Augustin and Kyle Singler as well as some in-house improvement from the likes of Anthony Morrow (nearly 46 percent since the All-Star break), OKC has been the ninth-best team from 3-point land, nailing 35.7 percent of their attempts.

That in turn creates more room for Russell Westbrook to drive to the hoop and finish at the rim against his defender; or get fouled and go to the free-throw line where he is converting at nearly 84 percent of his tries; or dish it out to an open man when the defense collapses/comes to help.

So when you see Westbrook churn out these eye-popping stats night after night and getting all the praise, just remember: he isn’t doing it alone.

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