How can you tell how selfish a basketball player is? In the past I would think of a player, who took his fair share of shots, without many assists. Russell Westbrook has me thinking about things differently in the past 3 seasons. It is true that a person can get assists for selfish reasons. Sure assists are seen as a selfless thing to do, but what if the guy getting the assists is also taking a bunch of shots. A player like that effectively takes his teammates out of games. They have to sit around waiting for him to do something, either pass the ball to them, or create the shot for himself. A couple seasons ago it seemed like Westbrook became addicted to this, do everything style, of play. Kevin Durant missed 55 games that season, and Westbrook took over dominating the basketball. Even when Durant came back last season, Westbrook still played the same way to a lesser extent. With Durant gone to Golden State this season Westbrook is having his way in OKC. I can't help but think that Westbrook is a little happy that Durant is gone, and the team is his. I came up with a statistics of my own. Okay it's really just a combination of other statistics that can be found on basketball reference. One of those stats that I combined is Usage%. Usage% is an estimate of the number of possessions a player ends for his team when he is on the floor. Usage% doesn't factor in assists, it factors in free throw attempts, field goal attempts, and turnovers. A player like Magic Johnson didn't have high usage rates throughout his career, but he obviously played a big role in the Lakers offense when he played. So I decided to combine Usage% with assists per 100 possessions. I'll just take the numbers given by basketball reference, which is rounded to the nearest tenth. This doesn't count instances in which a player could've gotten an assist, but someone missed a shot, but since they don't keep track of that, this will have to do. I looked at Westbrook stats the past three seasons (stats this season are prior to January 5th game at Houston), and compared it to seasons from other great players
Name Season Usage% Ast Per 100 Total
Russell Westbrook 2016-17 42.4 14.9 57.3
Russell Westbrook 2014-15 38.4 12.5 50.9
James Harden 2016-17 33.7 15.9 49.6
Russell Westbrook 2015-16 31.6 15.4 47.0
Dwyane Wade 2008-09 36.2 10.3 46.5
Lebron James 2009-10 33.5 11.5 46.0
Kobe Bryant 2005-06 38.7 5.8 44.5
Allen Iverson 2005-06 35.3 8.9 44.2
Michael Jordan 1986-87 38.3 5.8 44.1
Magic Johnson 1986-87 26.3 15.9 42.2
I believe that the seasons for everyone other than Westbrook is the season in which that total is highest of each person's career, but I'm not sure. Kobe had a higher total in a season when he only played six games, so I didn't count that. . Lebron James' total was 40.8 in 2011-12, his first championship season. It was 40.3 the season he won his second title, and 41.2 last season in which he won his third title. Jordan's totals for his championship seasons were 40.4, 39.7, 41.9, 39.3, 39.2, and 38.5 respectively. So is Westbrook playing the most selfish season in NBA history? Well it depends on what you consider selfish. Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50.4 ppg, and around 2 assists per game, so obviously he was focused on getting his points. Part of it comes down to whether Westbrook is getting a lot of assists for selfish reasons. You can debate that one. One thing that I am sure of is that Westbrook big numbers this seasons aren't the product of great efficiency. It's the product of him getting so many opportunities to make plays. He constantly has the ball. A 42.4 Usage% would be the record if he kept that at the end of the season. The highest Usage% usually goes a gunner. It goes to a player whose job is to score, and who doesn't dish out a bunch of assists. Westbrook is on his way to breaking the record, while at the same time constantly controlling the ball for his team in a way that Kobe, or Jordan, or even Lebron never have.
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