MUST READ: 2018 Offseason: Why Westbrook Is Criminally Underrated

Russell Westbrook sometimes struggles with taking too many threes, being turnover prone, inefficiency, playing out of control, shooting too much, and reckless defense. He’s still criticized far more than he deserves. When Russell played with Kevin Durant and they didn’t win, Westbrook got the blame basically every time because he is a “ball hog who didn’t let Kevin shoot enough”. Yet Durant, in 8 seasons alongside Russ, somehow won 4 scoring titles (3 if you don’t count the year when Russell played 46/82 games) and led the Thunder in points per game every season but the one he played about 33% of his team’s contests. Westbrook led OKC in field goal attempts per game once in the 6 years he or KD didn’t miss a significant number of contests. So it doesn’t make sense why the “poor Kevin had to endure 8 seasons with Russ” claim is still used. They went to a finals, 4 conference finals, lost in the first round once and missed the playoffs twice (one of those times was when Durant played about 33% of his team’s games). The Thunder were up 3-1 versus a 73 win, most in regular season history, team in a series but the notion that Russell can’t win a championship is still held strong. In the 2012 conference finals Oklahoma City beat a Spurs team who was tied for the league’s best regular season record and won 20 straight contests before OKC beat them in the last 4 games (the Spurs were eliminated in game 6).  

When I became an NBA fan in 2008, fans were intrigued for a few more years with the possibility of someone averaging a triple-double for a season, particularly LeBron James, because of how difficult that is to do in the modern era of basketball (the intrigue didn’t start in 2008). If he did that and no one else came close during a hypothetical year, the Colin Cowherd’s (out of the media he’s the most overcritical of Westbrook while practically being a LeBron worshipper) of the world and many others would’ve used that to say that he’s greater than Michael Jordan. Russ did it the last 2 seasons with no other player in contention but he’s viewed as a stat padder (the conception that 10 is an arbitrary number wasn’t used until now to diminish him). During that stretch Thunder players conceded some defensive rebounds for him. Despite that, Russell is arguably the best rebounding guard of all time. Yet nobody mentions that he gets most of his boards because of his talent. If Westbrook’s rebound average per game was cut by 25% (rough estimate to account for his cheap boards), he’d still average about 8 during his triple-double years which is practically unheard of for someone who’s 6’ 3”. It doesn’t make sense why people act like him getting rebounds, when his teammates purposefully don’t contend for them, to finish stops is a problem. Doesn’t it make sense to have one of the fastest players in history not have to wait to receive the ball to start a potential fast break?  

If a player averages north of 30 points per game in a season there’s a good chance he’ll win the scoring title. If that same guy dishes at least 10 dimes he’ll probably lead the league in assists. Doing both is very difficult while playing on the best three-point shooting team in terms of makes or percentage. Imagine doing that while playing on the worst three-point shooting team percentage wise. That means getting to the rim to make plays or obtaining assists in general is way harder than usual because of the lack of spacing. In his MVP year Russ averaged 31.6 points (led the NBA) and 10.4 assists (3rd in the league) on a team that shot 32.7% from three-point range (worst in the association). He led his squad in attempts from long-range while converting at a 34.3% rate which is higher than the team’s percentage. In addition, they made the 5th fewest jumpers from behind the arc. Russell played with a starting wing player in Andre Roberson who connected on 24.5% of his three-point shots and 42.3% of the free throws he attempted. However, everyone acts like Westbrook’s MVP award was given to him out of sympathy due to Durant’s departure and because he averaged a triple-double even though OKC won 47 games in the superior conference (if he averaged 9.9 rebounds and assists he still would've been a legitimate candidate). LeBron (the best player since his first MVP) and James Harden (2018 MVP) are the only current players, and 2 of the few in history, who could exceed or come close to Russ’ level of individual and team success in 2016-17 with his supporting cast from that season.

Victor Oladipo played much better last year compared to his season in Oklahoma City, when he was the 2nd offensive option to Russell, mainly because there wasn’t a Pacer who was an all-star caliber scorer. Harden’s stats skyrocketed from his Thunder days during his inaugural season as a Rocket for the same reason as Oladipo except he was the 3rd option to Westbrook and KD, but fans say that Russ was the only one holding James back. Victor and Harden were traded from Oklahoma City even though neither of them made it public that they wanted to leave. However, Russ’ haters say that their exits and ensuing performance at a much higher level is a stain on his resume. If a G League team was added to the NBA there would be at least one guy averaging at least 15-20 points because someone has to score a lot, like Michael Carter-Williams in his rookie year when he played on a 76ers team that was built to be as bad as possible and thus lost 63 games. (Though, MCW has never come close to being as good as the all-NBA version of Oladipo or James.) Yet no one criticizes LeBron when all-stars like Chris Bosh and Kevin Love produced far less alongside “The King” than when they were playing on squads without LBJ.

Russell is a top-tier passer due to his explosions off the dribble to find teammates that become open and spot up three-point shooters. The connection he’s had with Steven Adams in pick and rolls was only rivaled by the John Wall-Marcin Gortat combo. Westbrook consistently gives teammates easy opportunities to score but he “doesn’t make anyone else better”. Yet passers like LeBron, Harden, Chris Paul, John Wall and Ben Simmons get praised for doing the same thing.  

KD’s production as a Warrior mirror his OKC stats but since he won two rings in the bay area, people say that Russ was holding him back. The reason why Kevin won championships is because he is no longer playing in the Thunder’s vanilla offense which has hindered the franchise for many years, especially late in games. Often, in any quarter, Durant set a screen on Russell’s defender to get a much smaller player guarding him. Once that happened, the new defender guarding KD frequently denied a pass his way (mainly due to Kevin’s really skinny frame) for a long enough time to where Westbrook stopped looking to pass the ball to Durant. (Even while coming off screens, KD’s thin physique caused him to struggle regularly to free himself from defenders. However, those problems were way more pronounced before his MVP season. In 2013-14 he had to spend much more time initiating offense than before because Russ missed about 44% of the contests and Oklahoma City was devoid of anyone else who could come close to matching Westbrook’s individual/team offense.)  From there, Russell usually tried to score because he’s been one of the best scorers for the past 8 seasons and mainly since Oklahoma City’s offense would often completely stagnate after one predictable pick and roll but everyone acts like he isn’t qualified to shoot at least 20 times when he plays with a star player. (That stagnation happened regularly even after KD left). Scott Brooks and Billy Donovan hardly get any blame for running their offenses with extremely little innovation despite getting the opportunity to coach 2 superstars at the same time. On his burner account, Durant mentioned that he didn’t like Donovan and that his 2015-16 OKC teammates besides Westbrook were the problem but that aspect was predictably slid under the rug. In Oakland, Kevin joined an offense with the 2 best three-point shooters in history and a system that considerably emphasizes ball movement, cutting, screening and advanced offensive sets to where the best defenses are usually helpless.   

Russ got the blame when the Thunder got eliminated in game 6 of the last first round because he took 43 shots even though he willed his team back from a double digit deficit, though 19 three-point attempts is way too much. Paul George, his only star teammate, went 2/16 from the field with 5 points. Was Russell, by taking less shots, supposed to let Paul go 2/26 and allow that contest be a blowout? George went 2011 LeBron finals mode late in that game by being passive and deferring to the superstar who wasn’t afraid to take the high-pressure shots with the season on the line. If the roles were reversed, meaning one scored a ton and the other had a few points, Russ would’ve been crucified for not helping PG-13 enough.

In that same 1st round, Damian Lillard averaged 18.5 points per game while shooting 35.2% from the field and his team got swept despite having home court advantage with no notable injuries to use as an excuse. Later, he was named as a 1st team all-NBA guard over Russell. Damian’s playoff numbers were significantly worse than his regular season stats but his piss-poor performance was hardly discussed. Again, imagine how much ridicule Westbrook would get if he had that type of individual and team success during a postseason. In 6 years, Lillard has been to the second round twice and never played in a conference finals even though he’s had one all-NBA caliber teammate, Lamarcus Aldridge or C.J McCollum, every season that didn’t miss a worthy number of games while being healthy in the playoffs. Dame is a top-tier point guard but doesn’t get nearly as much criticism as Russ who’s far more successful in the regular season and playoffs.

Russell should be in the discussion as a top 5 point guard of all-time but he’ll be lucky to be in the top 10. Takeaway Westbrook’s reputation and you’ll realize that his stats combined with his longevity is arguably greater than any point guard in history.                

All stats come from nba.com