Russell Westbrook is one of the five best players in the National Basketball Association. Yes, he sits right up the top with Steph, LeBron, KD and Kawaii.
Russ is simply a beast and a consistent stat-sheet stuffer. He puts up video game numbers night after night and is no doubt an integral part of your daily fantasy roster night in, night out.
He is ruthless and he literally hunts down stats during the game. This ruthlessness is part of the reason that makes him such a great play. He LOVES beating up on teams, don’t fear the blowout with Russ it only means he’ll get his stats quicker. In games above a 10 point margin he averages 50.78 ppg!
You only had to watch the last five minutes of the 2016 All-Star game to realise that Russell was trying to do everything possible to win his second All-Star game MVP award.
23 shots in 22 minutes in an All-Star game that included 17 three-point field goal attempts for a career 30% shooter seems a bit much doesn’t it? Not for Russ the Alpha Dog. He’s 
got to get fed!
Season 2015/16 stats
24.1 points per game
10 assists per game
7.6 rebounds per game
2.3 steals per game
Season 2015/16 Moneyball fantasy stats
Average – 49.11 | PPM – 1.43
Home – 48.76 | Away – 49.56
Highest Score – 71.2 @ Orlando ( 60+ in 5 games )
Vegas Line < 210 – 46.57
Vegas Line > 210 – 52.20
He plays 34 minutes a night and goes absolutely full-speed for those entire 34 minutes. Perhaps the most brutally dominating and intimidating point guard to ever play the game. His athleticism, power and aggression really has to be seen in person to be believed. When Russ drives the lane 6ft 10′” Power Forwards and Centres clear out of the way.
How does he compare to other PG studs?
Steph Curry. The major difference between Steph Curry and Russ is that the Warriors have lots of scoring and distributing options and can be successful without Steph having a huge game whereas the Thunder only really have two great offensive players (KD and Russ), two decent ones in Serge Ibaka and Enes Kanter and then a host of average players.
The Thunder need Russ to get his points, rebounds and assists to be successful, even against lowly teams.
The Warriors also have a +12.5 points differential compared to the +8.2 that the Thunder have. That basically means that Golden State are involved in more ‘major blowouts’ than the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Any ball game under a 10 point margin theoretically should enable the starters to play a regular amount of minutes. Once you get up over a 12 point lead then coaches will be more inclined to sit the starters with the game seemingly in the bag.
John Wall (Averages 41.6 Moneyball points per game) is another stud Point Guard who actually has a game that is similar to that of Westbrook. Wall is a great player and an improving leader, but he is not on the Alpha Dog level like Westbrook just yet.
Check how their stats match-up
JW points per game: 20
RW points per game: 24
JW assists per game: 9.9
RW assists per game: 10
JW rebounds per game: 4.5
RW rebounds per game: 7.6
Neither are great long-range shooters although Wall has been much improved this year and has benefited from defences sagging off him (35% from deep).
Wall’s Washington Wizards score on average 7.4 points per game less than Westbrooks Thunder, perhaps attributing to some of the difference in their statistics. That coupled with the fact Russell is just so big and can overpower his smaller opponents and get a ton of rebounds as well. He averages almost two (1.8) offensive boards per game where as Wall only averages .6 per game.
Thunderous offense
The Oklahoma City Thunder are 40-14 this year and a whopping 13 games clear in the Northwest division.
They are the second best offensive team in the NBA (110.1 points per game), concede 101.9 points per game and play at the 9th fastest pace in the league (per John Hollinger’s stats).
In fact, the Thunder have scored less than 105 points in a game just once in their past 16 matches. All these factors bode really well for solid fantasy production and Russ capitalises on it night after night.
