Both 2nd year point guards are in the forefront of the new breed of NBA point guards. The new breed is the super athlete. The guy who isn't as statistically dominating in the college game as a Michael Beasley or Kevin Durant, but are a prized possession due to their size and athleticism. This trend is most evidently clear at the point guard position. Both Rose and Westbrook are listed around 6'3” and 190 pounds and have only one month separating them in age (Rose is a little over a month older than Westbrook). They play similar style of game which will be compared more in more depth throughout this article.
Westbrook had rather pedestrian college stats considering he was the 4th selection overall in the 2008 draft, 3 picks after the #1 overall selection, Derrick Rose. Westbrook entered the draft after his sophomore year at UCLA where he averaged 12.7 points per game in 33 minutes. His freshman year at UCLA was a learning season for Russell, only averaging 9 minutes a game and 3.4 points. This is an enormous jump from averaging 3.4 points per game as a freshman in college to averaging 16.1 points per game three years later for playoff team in the NBA. Part of this improvement should obviously be attributed to natural progression but what should not be over looked is the Russell's skill set being a better fit for the NBA game. There are multiple factors why the NBA structure fits the athletic point guard more than the college game. These include the limited hand checking in the NBA, more space to maneuver with a longer 3-point line, the limited capabilities of NBA teams to implore an effective zone defense, and the fact that most NBA players are deadly shooters, making it harder to help and recover.
Rose was much more of an NBA prospect coming out of high school than Westbrook. He certainly had some hype surrounding him but Michael Beasley was putting up huge numbers as a freshman at Kansas State during that same season. I remember thinking Beasley was the better player at the time. Boy, was I wrong! Beasley hasn't figured the NBA out yet and Rose is on the edge of super-stardom. Rose was ranked 5th in the recruiting class of 2007. Names ahead of him on the list of high schoolers include OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, Eric Gordan and the aforementioned Beasley. If Rose were to of stayed all 4 years at Memphis, he, like Kyle Singler, would be entering his final NCAA season next year. Rose showed enough in his only year at Memphis to get picked 1st overall. There was a debate between Rose and Beasley for the #1 pick but Rose's hometown team, the Chicago Bulls [1], had the selection. It was situation where it made as much sense to pick Rose as it did to not want to overlook the hometown boy who could come back to haunt the franchise. So Rose was the pick of Chicago, followed by Beasley by Miami, Mayo by Minnesota (later traded to Memphis), and then Westbrook by Oklahoma City.
That brings us to the NBA performance of Westbrook and Rose. Both players increased their scoring averages from their final college season to their rookie year in the NBA and then again from their rookie season to their second year in the NBA. What makes them different and in what ways are they similar? Comparing these two is made a lot easier because they play a similar amount of minutes and use a similar amount of possessions per game, with Rose slightly ahead in both areas. This has to do with Rose already being the man in Chicago while Westbrook is sitting in the passenger seat in OKC with Kevin Durant driving the car. I'll examine 5 important criteria to evaluate the players against each other. Those 5 categories are scoring, passing, ball control, rebounding/defense and shooting.
Scoring – At the current stage of each of these 2 player's development, Rose is a much better scorer. It shows through in averages and efficiency. While Rose scores more, he also shoots more shots. But the big edge in scoring is the efficiency in which Rose scores. He shot nearly 48.9% from the field to Westbrook's 41.8%. Rose also plays well with others. Rose was assisted on 32% of his made baskets compared to Westbrook at 20%. Westbrook will find it is not too difficult to score as many points as Rose if he would let others create for him. But one disturbing trend I noticed with Rose is his knack for avoiding contact when driving to the basket. I noticed it when I watched him play and the numbers backed me up. Despite attempting 177 more shots than Westbrook, Rose shot 84 less free throws. Part of this is Rose shooting more jump shots than Westbrook. Another part is Rose shying away from contact and using his floater instead of finding contact from a defender [2].
Scoring Advantage: Rose
Passing – Both players blazing speed makes them a terror in transition. Westbrook has elevated his passing game in his sophomore season in the NBA, averaging 8 assists per night. Rose averaged 6 assists per game, down .3 per game from his rookie average of 6.3 per. I believe that the best assist (did you really think all assists were created equally?) possible is an assist at the rim or for a dunk. In this area Westbrook puts Rose to shame. Westbrook assisted on 123 more baskets close to the rim or dunks than Rose did this season. Jump shots can be arbitrary (unless it is Kyle Korver or a few others receiving the pass), dunks and lay-ups are made fairly consistently in the NBA. My point being that both players can pass, but Westbrook's assists are easier to convert.
Passing Advantage: Westbrook
Ball Control – By ball control I'm focusing on turnovers. Both players are required to do the majority of the ball-handling for their team, night in and night out. Both teams play at a similar pace and get nearly the same amount of possessions per game (with Chicago getting slightly more). Both players made similar amount of ball-handling turnovers but Westbrook was 2 times more likely to charge than Rose. I guess Rose avoiding body contact on drives actually helps him as a ball-handler. I was surprised to see that Rose averaged half of a turnover less than Westbrook per game. With Rose already being the man of his city, he has the responsibility to take shots or create when the shot clock is winding down. Westbrook has Durant to take these shots in OKC, leaving Russell to do most of his damage in the first 15 seconds of the shot clock. I would think this would make Rose more turnover prone because he is forced to create even when the openings are not there. But he was not. Rose is more of a steady ball-handler, compared to Westbrook who seems to be more of a high risk, high reward handler.
Ball Control Advantage: Rose
Defense and rebounding – This is an area Westbrook really excels at. Rose has the tools to defend and rebound but seems rather inept. Westbrook was 10th in the league in steals at 1.3 per game while Rose averaged .5 less. This is a lot of steals over the course of an entire season. Westbrook averages an entire rebound more than Rose per game but this difference is made up in offensive rebounds. Westbrook is a remarkable offensive rebounder for point guard. He gets more offensive rebounds than Kevin Garnett and Antawn Jamison! He gets more offensive rebounds than his 6'11” teammate, Kevin Durant, and his 6'9” teammate, Jeff Green! Another key factor to comparing these two players' defense is how their teams fair when they are not on the court. The Thunder are almost 5 points per 100 possessions worse on defense when Westbrook is out of the game. The Bulls give up roughly the same amount of points whether Rose is on the court or not.
Defense and Rebound Advantage: Westbrook
Shooting - Neither player can shoot with range, both shooting under 25% from the 3-point line. Westbrook hoists over one 3-pointer per game. Why? Someone needs to take a page out of Josh Smith's book and cut out the 3-point shot. As far as shot selection, both players score equally as well on inside and close range shots. The difference in points per game between the two comes from Rose having a more effective jumper. Rose attempts 68% of his shots on jumpers and scores 11.1 points per game on these jumpers. Westbrook uses 60% of his shots on jumpers but only scores 6.1 points per game. This works out to a difference of 10% in eFG% [3]. That's a pretty staggering difference.
Shooting Advantage: Rose
Using the 5 criteria I find most important in evaluating point guards, Rose takes 3 out of 5. I think this would be the general consensus opinion without all the analysis, especially since Rose played on TV a lot more often than Westbrook so the public got a better look at him. Westbrook definitely does some things better than Rose at this point in his career. Plus, the things Rose does well are not so much better than Westbrook that the gap couldn't be closed in the next few years of development. So who would I take? I think you can't go wrong with either of them.
[1] The Bulls won the draft lottery with only a 1.7% chance of getting the #1 pick. This is the second largest upset in draft lottery history when the Orlando Magic received the #1 pick in 1993 with only a 1.5% chance. The Magic used the pick to select Chris Webber but traded his rights to Golden State for Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway.
[2] Nice link about Rose not getting to the free throw line:
http://blog.shamsports.com/2010/04/derrick-rose-isn-very-good-at-drawing.html
[3] eFG% is a basketball statistic (shooting metric) that adjusts for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal. For example, suppose Player A goes 4 for 10 with 2 threes, while Player B goes 5 for 10 with 0 threes. Each player would have 10 points from field goals, and thus would have the same effective field goal percentage (50%). The formula is: eFG% = (FG + 0.5*3P) / FGA
