Washington Wizards: Russell Westbrook is an enigma
Where Russell Westbrook’s shot is now
The peak version of Westbrook has been missing for quite some time. Since 2018-19, he has been in a steady decline, which is unsurprising for a player so reliant on athleticism who has entered their 30s.
He has been able to paper over his declining skill set in the general public’s eyes by maintaining a massive usage rate and securing an incredible number of triple-doubles, but the arrow has been pointing down for some time. Westbrook hasn’t fallen off a cliff he just isn’t a top-10, let alone a top-20 player, anymore. Aging gracefully into your late 30s, even for a superstar, isn’t a rule, it’s an exception.
Russell Westbrook’s scoring decline is real
Russell Westbrook’s scoring decline has been fueled by a compounding of two factors. The only thing that kept peak Westbrook out the red, as a scorer, was his ability to generate and hit free throws. Over the past three seasons, both of those skills have eroded and made his inability to improve as a shooter from the field an even more costly deficiency.
A team can stomach an inefficient shooter if they’re racking up free throws to offset the damage, because, in the end, they reach an efficient range of production. In a cruel twist of fate, as Westbrook’s ability to get to the line has diminished, although he remains above average, his ability to hit free throws has declined as well.
Over the first nine seasons of his career, Westbrook was an above-average to very good free throw shooter. In the four ensuing seasons, from 2017-18 to this current season, he has been below average each season and this season he’s reached the nadir with a 64.1 percent line from the stripe when the league average is 77.7 percent. For a player whose scoring is so dependent on trips to the line a drop-off like this firmly puts their shooting-based offense in the red.
Russell Westbrook’s shooting decisions are partly to blame
Perhaps the most maddening aspect of Westbrook’s game is that he is not only a poor shooter but he also takes far too many of the least valuable shots. The two most valuable shots in the NBA are lay-ups and threes.
A shot at the rim averages 1.35 points per shot and a 3-pointer averages 1.1 points per shot. All other shots, which we know as the mid-range, average between .82 and .87 points per shot. For a league-average shooter, you want them to avoid the mid-range in favor of bombs from three or shots at the rim.
Westbrook’s shot chart bucks mathematical convention as he takes more shots than average from mid-range and fewer shots than average at the rim and from three. This wouldn’t be a horrible strategy if Westbrook was very good at hitting those shots, but that isn’t the case here.
Westbrook shoots below average on shots 10-16 feet from the rim and shots 16 feet to the 3-point line. He does convert shots in the 3-10 foot range at an above-average rate and it also represents the largest part of his shot diet, but he isn’t so good at the shot that it offsets the fact that it is a bad shot, to begin with.
It’s incredible to write this, but Westbrook would be better off replacing his non-lay-up 2-pointers with 3-pointers where he averages .93 points per shot as opposed to .92, .75, and .77 points per shot from his mid-range game. The only shot chart that would be good for Westbrook is one where he almost exclusively takes shots at the rim.