Russell Westbrook might address a few of Denver's needs, but he exacerbates their biggest weakness

Westbrook's shooting makes him a questionable fit in Denver

By Sam Quinn Jul 18, 2024 at 7:54 pm ET• 6 min read

Russell Westbrook is about as chaotic as basketball players come, and there's something to be said for chaos in small doses. The Los Angeles Clippers of last season were slow, mechanical and largely orderly. James Harden pretty famously sticks to a small number of shots. Kawhi Leonard has his spots as well. Most of the time, at least during their heyday of December and January, their talent was so overwhelming that the somewhat predictable nature of their offense was still more than enough to win. 

When it wasn't? Westbrook could still steal stretches and by extension games through sheer energy. When you've spent an entire game methodically defending a small number of predictable actions, seeing Westbrook fly out of the corner to steal an offensive rebound midair becomes sort of a shock to the system. It's really hard to defend at Harden's speed and Westbrook's speed at the same time. In sufficiently limited quantities, that chaos is a pretty dangerous weapon.

But it's also, well, chaos, and it's pretty hard to rely on chaos. During that dominant stretch in December and January, the Clippers were around seven points better per 100 possessions without Westbrook in the game. He had to be benched to accommodate Harden's arrival, and he shot 26% from the floor in a six-game first-round loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Inject chaos at the right moment and it becomes adrenaline. Do it every night and it can just as easily become poison.

And make no mistake, the Nuggets need Westbrook to be an every night player once he inevitably clears waivers and signs with them. They aren't the Clippers. This isn't a 12-deep roster burnished with limitless shot-creation. Nikola Jokic is the best generator of team offense in basketball. Jamal Murray is a worthy sidekick. After that? Well, as we saw in Game 7 against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when the non-Jokic/Murray Nuggets scored 21 total points, it's pretty shaky.