NBA Star Power Index: Russell Westbrook taking well to bench role; Kyrie Irving more trouble than he's worth

Also, Luka Doncic matches a Michael Jordan mark from the mid-80s

Welcome back to NBA Star Power Index: A weekly gauge of the players getting the most buzz around the league. Inclusion on this list isn't necessarily a good thing -- it simply means you're capturing the NBA world's attention. This is also not a ranking. The players listed are in no particular order. This column will run every week throughout the regular season. 

Just when you thought Irving couldn't get any more toxic, he tweets out a link to a 2018 documentary "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America," which Rolling Stone described as being "stuffed with antisemitic tropes." Then when he was asked about it, he said he was "not going to stand down on anything I believe in" and more or less attacked the ESPN reporter, Nick Friedell, who was, you know, simply doing his job by asking Irving about it. 

The day after Kyrie posted the link, which he eventually took down, Nets owner Joe Tsai tweeted: "I'm disappointed that Kyrie appears to support a film based on a book full of anti-semitic disinformation."

Who knows what Kyrie really believes anymore and how much all of the wild, conspiracy-theory madness he spews is merely a contrarian need to be, or at least feel, more enlightened and smarter than his growing list of adversaries. Either way, Irving can't possibly be good for a basketball team at this point in time, even averaging over 26 points a game. 

Truth be told, even if Irving was the best player in the league, this stuff would be hard, if not impossible, to push aside for a team. At some point, even Irving himself won't be able to compartmentalize all the drama he's created and continue to produce. That process might have already started on Tuesday, when Irving scored four points and was a team-worst minus-14 in a loss to the Bulls.

Russell Westbrook's first game coming off the bench went about as well as anyone could've hoped. Westbrook finished with 18 points, eight assists and eight rebounds on 6-of-12 shooting. He was a game-high plus-18 (the first time he registered a positive point differential this season), and the Lakers picked up their first win of the year, defeating the Nuggets. 

Westbrook even managed to turn a Lakers crowd that has spent the majority of the season groaning every time he touches the ball in his favor. 

Russell Westbrook has the crowd behind them tonight.

Lakers up 99-95 on the Nuggets with over 8 minutes to go.

(via @michaelcorvoNBA) pic.twitter.com/LpfxgEM5Mc

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) October 31, 2022

Through two games in a bench role Westbrook is averaging 18 points (while operating mostly in the paint, a very good thing), eight rebounds and 5.5 assists, and probably more importantly, he finally seems to be OK with the idea of not being a starter. On Tuesday, he acknowledged that a bench role is in everybody's best interest.

"It's beneficial for everybody in my opinion," Westbrook said. "My job is to find ways to keep making my team better. Whatever that it is we need that night, whether it's assisting, rebounding, scoring, defending, I'm a person that prides myself on doing everything each and every night, and I want to be able to have that trickle down effect with the guys I'm on the floor with."

The Bucks are the lone unbeaten team at 6-0 and Giannis was just named Eastern Conference Player of the Week. After being "held" to 21 points, 13 rebounds, eight assists and three blocks in the Bucks' first game of the season, here are Antetokounmpo's last five point-rebound totals:

• 31-7
• 34-17
• 30-14
• 43-14
• 44-12

Not much else to say: Giannis is playing at an MVP level and the Bucks again look like a top-shelf title contender. Business as usual. 

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named Western Conference Player of the Week after the Thunder won three straight. Over the span, SGA averaged 31.7 points, 7.7 assists and 5.3 rebounds. He's currently sixth in the league in scoring and playing good defense: his 2.5 steals per game is tops in the league among all players who don't play for the 48-minutes-of-hell Raptors. 

This also seems good:

Players with multiple 30/5/5/2/2 games this season:

— Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

That’s it. pic.twitter.com/OOrjxTMExm

— StatMuse (@statmuse) November 2, 2022

Like Luka Doncic (the next player on this list), SGA creates a ton of offense for himself; 80 percent of his buckets are unassisted. He might be the best penetrator in the game; his 27.7 drives per game as usual leads the league, but it's the work he's starting to do in the midrange that is standing out. 

With the downhill pressure SGA puts on defenders, the stop-and-pop foul-line jumpers are more or less indefensible if he can hit them at a consistent clip, which he's doing so far. So far only three players are attempting more shots per game in the 10-14 foot range than SGA, and between 10-19 feet he's shooting just under 53 percent (19 for 36). 

Doncic's last three games: 116 points, 30 rebounds, 29 assists and five steals. He's the first player to score at least 30 points in the first six games of the season since Michael Jordan in 1986-87. Doncic's 36.7 points per game leads the league, and he's creating almost all that offense himself. Entering play on Wednesday, 92.2 percent of Luka's buckets have been unassisted, per NBA.com.