Written by Andrew Sharp at SI.com
Years from now, it won’t matter that the Thunder finished in fifth or sixth or seventh place in the West. Anyone looking back on this NBA season will want to talk about Russell Westbrook first, and anyone who watched it unfold as it happened will happily oblige them. What Westbrook’s doing now will make even less sense later. The other night he put up 57 points, 13 rebounds, and 11 assists, hit a game-tying three to send it into overtime, and won it at the end. I watched it live, cackling in my living room.
Now it’s awards season across the NBA. I wrote about Kawhi’s MVP case a few weeks ago, and Ben Golliver wrote about James Harden’s MVP case earlier this week. And if it’s time to talk about commemorating this Westbrook season, I think we should be clearer about what we’re celebrating.
Westbrook’s season has me torn as a basketball fan. I think it’s less because of him, and more because of the way other basketball fans talk about him. We spent the last six years watching smart basketball fans treat Kobe Bryant like a war criminal because of his shot selection, but suddenly Russell Westbrook is indisputably more valuable than anyone in basketball? It doesn’t track.
The triple double implies a well-rounded game by its very terms, but there’s been nothing well-rounded about Westbrook in 2017. He plays almost no defense. He dominates the ball to a historic extent. His passing is perfunctory—he’ll distribute the ball until he has double-digit assists, and then perfectly-decent role players like Victor Oladipo are transformed into frozen bystanders as the game unfolds. By design, many of his rebounds come off free throws, and some of them come after uncontested shots as Westbrook abandons his man to chase the boards—read this Reddit breakdown for more. All of this has made it harder to be blown away by his triple doubles. And yes, he’s an unbelievable scorer who’s been even better in crunch time, but even that story can get complicated. As he locks into hero mode, teammates eventually become too checked-out to help him at the end, forcing him to do even more.
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