On Our Offense: Backcourt Musings

Assistant No. 1
Collison is Ben Howland's extension on the floor. When the play breaks down and it's late on the shot clock, Darren is one of the best pick-and-roll players in the country. But the biggest thing about him is that he's a great penetrator who can finish at the rim or shoot the floater in the paint.

Assistant No. 2
The thing with Westbrook is that it's tough to beat his intensity. You have to match his physical play, not just defensively but on the glass, because he's a tremendous offensive rebounder. Is he a great shooter? No. But he's one of the better midrange-shooting guards in our league.

Assistant No. 1
Collison has two Final Fours on his résumé, so he knows what it takes to get there. Westbrook is a great player, but Collison is their leader. And the bottom line is they're better together than with Westbrook running the point solo.

Assistant No. 2
I'm not quite ready to say Westbrook is better either. But I think he's the type of guy who can be an All-Pac-10 player, and maybe even Conference Player of the Year. That's the magic of Ben Howland: He turned the Collison loss into a positive, and now he's got a two-headed monster.

Offensively, Westbrook's biggest source of production (nearly 30% of his offense) curiously comes in transition. He plays a fairly small role in UCLA's half-court offense (only 8% of his offense comes from either pick and roll or isolation plays) , mostly as a complimentary piece--moving off the ball trying to find holes in the defense to get to the rim with his tremendous strength and leaping ability, or shooting wide open jumpers. It's pretty clear when breaking down his footage that he lacks quite a bit of polish on this end of the floor, even if he is extremely effective at the few things he does well.

Westbrook's ball-handling skills are fairly limited, as he has the ability the beat players off the dribble with his tremendous first step going left or right, and is solid getting to the rim in a straight line, but he struggles when trying to do much more than that. He lacks the advanced dribbling skills needed to create his own shot and change directions sharply in the half-court (for example at the end of a shot clock), and thus often looks a bit out of control when dribbling in traffic, forcing him to flip up some awkward shots at the rim. It's not uncommon to see him called for various violations in the rare occasion that he tries to go out and make something happen on his own, be it traveling calls, palming or offensive fouls.

As far as his jump-shot is concerned, Westbrook is mostly a catch and shoot player, hitting only 18 3-pointers on the season (on a 34.6% clip), usually on open looks, in rhythm and with his feet set. His release is not the quickest or most fluid around, and he lacks accuracy when rushed or forced to shoot off the dribble. He has the potential to improve here, but his touch at the moment looks fairly average. In terms of his mid-range game, Westbrook doesn't show great polish here either, as his shot is a bit flat, and he doesn't always take advantage of his terrific leaping ability to create separation from his defender with his pull-up jumper. He seems to be showing more and more sparks as the season moves on here, though.

To Westbrook's credit, these flaws are not always very noticeable, as he is a very smart player who knows his limitations and has no problem fitting in and being just another cog in UCLA's very efficient offense. He plays within himself, rarely forcing the issue, and thus has done a very good job of not exposing his weaknesses within his team's  system. The fact that he has other highly efficient and extremely unselfish teammates like Kevin Love, Darren Collison and Josh Shipp has also helped him a great deal.

As a point guard, Westbrook is not an instinctive playmaker, but is very much capable of bringing the ball up the floor and getting his team into its offense. He is smart, patient, and highly unselfish, and possesses the court vision needed to find the open man without hesitation, picking up quite a few assists just by getting the ball to the right place in UCLA's half-court sets. He lacks some creativity when it comes to improvising outside of his team's offense, though, and it's here that his inexperience running the point guard position, along with his average ball-handling skills, seem to show the most. It should be noted that despite his very high assist totals (4.6 per game on the season, compared with just 2.7 turnovers), when taking into account only the most competitive games UCLA was involved with (the eleven which finished within a 10 point margin), his assists per game drop to 3.2, while his turnovers remain at 2.7.

Defensively, Westbrook is nothing short of outstanding, as evidenced by the phenomenal work he did locking down the three top scoring guards in the Pac-10 this season, O.J. Mayo, Jerryd Bayless, and James Harden. He is long, strong and very fundamentally sound, getting into a terrific defensive stance on every possession, moving his feet incredibly well, and being absolutely tenacious getting after his matchup. His wingspan, combined with his huge hands and outstanding anticipation skills make him a terror in the passing lanes, and this is a big factor why he spends so much time in transition offensively.