Opis
As of this moment as I am recording this video, Russell Westbrook and the Los Angeles Clippers have just won game 1 against the Phoenix Suns, stealing home court advantage in this deceptively high stakes first round series.
It was a dominant performance by Westbrook. He was hounding Kevin Durant and Devin Booker on defence all night long, he had some crucial offensive boards, and he came through big in the clutch. This in spite of a horrendous shooting night from him. In fact, people have been joking that this is the greatest 3/19 game in NBA history.
Interestingly enough, there has arguably been a better 3/19 game in NBA postseason history. One player recorded a statline of 19 points, 21 rebounds, and 14 assists in an NBA postseason game. That player’s name? Russell Westbrook, who did so in game 4 to lead his Wizards to a win against the Sixers and avoid a sweep. It wasn’t exactly the highest of stakes, but that Wizards team had no business even being in the postseason, and the only reason they were in the postseason was Russell Westbrook.
For someone who has supposedly built his career on empty stats, Westbrook’s impact sure does often eclipse his box score.
But then again, there are few players whose accolades and body of work are so much at odds with the general narrative about him. The attitude of many members of the basketball media has been nothing short of unhinged, and has only gotten worse in recent years with his physical decline.
There isn’t really any reason to go into specific examples, because anyone who follows the sport has heard these talking points. But I will give some examples anyway. Ryen Russilo basically retconned Russ’ whole career and acted like he was both a loser and a coach killer everywhere he’s gone (which is demonstrably false). Kevin O’Connor dismissed the Clippers’ title chances just by virtue of having Westbrook on their roster. I know choosing examples from the Ringer might be low hanging fruit, but even Zach Lowe – undoubtedly someone who knows a lot about the NBA – called the Clippers signing a former MVP at the league minimum, one of the riskiest midseason moves in NBA history. Like OK Zach you can disagree with the signing, but calling it a high risk move is just absurd. They needed a point guard and they signed one at the league minimum. How is that a risky move?
And it’s worked out well. In 21 regular season games with the Clippers, Russ has averaged 15.8 points, 7.6 assists, and 4.9 rebounds on nearly 49 percent shooting from the field. That’s pretty good for a player who so many presumed would be out of the league once the Lakers let him go.
It’s not complicated to see why the Russ Lakers experiment failed. It was a combination of bad salary and bad fit. Russ was getting paid like an MVP, because he was on the contract he earned after winning the MVP. In turn, that hampered the Lakers ability to build a more talented roster. Moreover, Russ is not the type of point guard you can easily pair with Lebron because he needs the ball to be effective and it doesn’t make sense to take the ball out of Lebron’s hands. It’s not rocket science. But the fact that Russ is still talked about so negatively even now as a member of the Clippers; the fact that he still garners so much negativity in spite of being a productive point guard on league minimum salary, indicates that these anti-Russ sentiments are more than merely the product of basketball analysis. There is some level of personal vendetta.