Basketball Prospectus Adds Sanity to Durant Debate

Anytime statheads and traditionalists get into it, both sides tend to escalate the rhetoric in a take-no-prisoners approach (“I wouldn’t take Kevin Durant on my team if he was offered for free” or “Kevin Durant is a super-duper superstar who makes the rim melt with his grit and your stats suck if they can’t see that” ).

Ugh. While I would certainly jump at the chance to have Kevin Durant on my team (please, please, please come to Washington), Abbott’s piece, while hyperbolic at times, does hit on some uncomfortable realities. Maybe it’s just that I’m inherently suspicious of any argument that dismisses criticism with an appeal to the ineffable qualities of superstardom, but there has to be some way to square away what we see with our eyes and what the stats tell us. Luckily, Kevin Pelton over at Basketball Prospectus did just that, breaking down the numbers and adding some context, and much needed sanity, to this discussion. From Basketball Prospectus:

Even his backers would admit that while Durant is already damn near unguardable, he is still a work in progress defensively. This is generally true for most young players, who usually aren’t strong enough to check NBA vets, and especially so for Durant given his slim physique. So Durant’s plus-minus shortcomings begin to make sense when you look at his defensive (non)-performance. But what of the fact that the Thunder were slightly more efficient offensively with Durant on the bench? Pelton is back on the case:

In Durant’s absence, despite taking on larger roles--only Collison did not significantly increase his usage--his teammates scored at a more efficient clip. We really have two different stories here. There are three players--Thabo Sefolosha, Earl Watson and Kyle Weaver--who picked up the majority of the minutes when Durant was on the bench. All of them played significantly better in this role. Meanwhile, Jeff Green and Russell Westbrook saw little change to their minutes when Durant sat but played go-to roles on offense and did so without sacrificing any efficiency. [...]

The way Green and Westbrook responded to Durant’s absence is also interesting. Looking more deeply into the statistics, both players shot a lower percentage from the field when asked to shoulder a heavier offensive load (Westbrook significantly less, his FG% dipping from .406 to .380). However, their True Shooting Percentages improved. Why? Free throws. Westbrook attempted .445 free throws for each field-goal attempt when Durant was sidelined, up from .369 alongside Oklahoma City’s go-to player. Green took an even bigger leap, from .255 free throw attempts per field-goal attempt with Durant to .404 without him.

While I haven’t watched these games, I’ll say that it seems unlikely that Sefolosha and Weaver were setting up Green and Westbrook. Instead, with Durant on the bench, Thunder coach Scott Brooks was calling their number and asking both players to operate one-on-one or play pick-and-roll basketball. As it turns out, both responded well to this role change, getting to the basket and drawing fouls. The suggestion is apparently that, at this stage in their careers, Green and Westbrook are better suited as go-to players on offense rather than playing away from the ball.