I agree with both of these. Rondo makes a big difference. And people who talk about Perk's scoring don't really get what his value is. He's anchoring a good defense and he gives them a veteran presence that's played in multiple finals.
Saying Perkins anchors the OKC defense is like saying Rondo led the C's to the Finals in 2008, both are inaccurate.
He plays 27 mostly unproductive minutes a game for OKC. He's a liability on one end, which is fine, if he was rebounding and blocking shots on the other end. He's been a terrible - yes, terrible - rebounder this year. He's blocking shots below his career average. His one-on-one defense - opponents average a 15.0 PER against him, which isn't great. If this is the "anchor" of the defense, well...yikes. I guess he offers a lot of "veteran presence" or something.
It's helping the Thunder in one of those new-fangled metrics that you hate so much, wins and losses.
It's actually more accurate to say that those new-fangled metrics are being achieved in spite of Perkins' awfulness this year.
Just curious. How many Thunder games have you watched this season?
To those posting constantly about how lousy Perk is this season because of his stats, do you watch a lot of Thunder basketball, of just look at stats?
I've watched almost every game, and Perk's filling his role on the team as expected. He sets bone jarring picks on offense, and mucks up the lane on defense. Their leading rebounder is a SF, and more than half their rebounds come for their littles.
They're at the top of the league offensively, even though their four bigs only average 20 ppg on 16 shots. They grab 20 rpg combined too. This is not your conventional team, but one metric is eye popping - the 20-5 record.
Focusing on Perk's scoring in this system is akin to complaining that a football offensive lineman doesn't have a lot of touchdowns. The bigs on this team don't get to score. As mentioned earlier, Westbrook doesn't set the table for Perk like Rondo and the Big 3 did, so his ppg are down, but he's still generating 1.4 points per shot, which is his career average (mostly due to his vastly improved FT shooting).
I was a handful of rows from the court when the Thunder came into Boston and beat the Celtics, and I was very impressed with this team's demeanor. They've got physical, lunch bucket bigs, highly skilled, energetic, explosive littles, and play with great esprit d' corps. Durant is an absolute monster to cover, and this year is doing a lot of the little things. Westbrook isn't a traditional PG, but is a handful. Hardin is a Pierce-lite type. He doesn't look like he's great, but he's good at everything.
Two things could be a playoff roadblock to this team. They get little scoring from their bigs, and in a playoff series, where teams lock in on their half court defense, a perimeter oriented attack might grind to a halt (although they were tops on offense last playoffs). Second, the Maynor injury took away a bi advantage they had over most teams - a starter quality backup PG who could both score and run a team.
Anyway, back to the Perk bashing - 4.6ppg/5.5rpg/$7.1million
There are many fans in OKC that are calling Perkins to be amnestied, believe it or not.
Really? I read OKC forums and haven't observed this at all. Links?
Topic: Kendrick Perkins Struggling (Danny should say "I told you so") (Read 25754 times)