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[QUOTE="Melancer46, post: 1085056, member: 1674"]
This argument when it comes to Westbrook bugs me.  I cut Melo slack because as you pointed out, he was pretty much the only option for the Knicks this year, but there's also been times like in the playoffs the year the Knicks had the 2 seed where he just flat out refuses to pass.  I know his teammates ended up struggling in the playoffs that year too, but so did Melo, and he just couldn't bring himself to pass the ball at all.  It was embarrassing.

Regarding Westbrook, he, in my opinion, has a similar predicament.  Yes, he has Durant, which is obviously gigantic, but after that, he really doesn't have anything.  Ibaka has started to come into his own, but he disappears far too often to be a #3 option on a title contender, and after Ibaka, there's just nobody there.  OKC starts two guys that can't even effectively catch passes and lay them in.  Perkins makes last year's Tyson Chandler look like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Thabo Sefolosha makes JR/Shumpert look like Reggie Miller.  People argue all the time that OKC needs to trade Westbrook for a distributor like Rondo, but Westbrook's offense is a huge part of that team.  Without him, that team would turn into a slightly better version of this year's Knicks.  They'd get destroyed in the West.  And with the way that Durant continues to disappear for long stretches in the playoffs, it really kinda forces Westbrook to go into his shot-happy mode much like we see Melo do.  If OKC had better shooters or scorers, I think we'd see a different Westbrook.  He's a very gifted passer, and has great court vision, but he takes on a huge chunk of the scoring load because of the makeup of OKC.
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