2. Russell Westbrook has the most efficient offensive season of his career
Russell Westbrook, despite racking up the counting stats and getting accolades as a result, is not an efficient basketball player. That is one of the biggest knocks against him and is why the advanced numbers do not love him. Why he has not been a winner yet in his career.
Effective field goal percentage is a really good statistic to use to see just how efficient a player is shooting the basketball. It takes into account that threes are worth more than twos which are worth more and ones.
It is better than a stat such as offensive rating because that is so team dependent. Stats such as offensive win shares and Offensive Box Plus/Minus are also good, but eFG% helps paint how efficient someone is.
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Westbrook is not efficient. He has never posted a season above a 50% eFG% with his career-high being 49.3% in 2019-20 with the Houston Rockets. For comparison’s sake, LeBron James has a career eFG% of 54.3% and he is not the greatest of shooters. He also hasn’t posted a year below 50% since his rookie year.
This will be the year that Westbrook gets above 50% as it is the year in which he is asked to do the least. I genuinely do think LeBron James is going to get to him and we are going to see a player that is not forcing the issue and instead is capitalizing on the talent and spacing around him.
We saw the positive impact that James Harden had on him as a facilitator, just imagine what LeBron James can do, especially when the biggest threat off-ball is always going to be Anthony Davis.