Super-Overreactionizer: Lions and Pacers and Thunder, Oh my

Miscast

by Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

The Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook pairing appears to have hit its ceiling. You can shift some blame to inopportune injuries, but they’ve now washed out of the playoffs three years in a row, not by tiny margins of clutch brilliance by their opponents. Double-digit drubbings have been their undoing as the Heat, Grizzlies and now the Spurs have sent them home, reminding them to close the door behind them on their way out. Something needs to change in Oklahoma City next year because the Durant-Westbrook combination is going nowhere.

Most people will point their accusing fingers at Scott Brooks and his bespectacled coaching spectacle. But I have a different solution, instead of trying a coaching change maybe the Thunder should try a Westbrook-Durant pairing next year. Maybe the mistake they’ve been making these past three years is assuming that this team and this offense should belong to its best player. Maybe Durant has been miscast as a Jordan or a Bird, when really he’s just the best damn Rashard Lewis that ever lived. Maybe this should have been Westbrook’s team all along.

I realize this sounds ridiculous. First of all, Westbrook has already taken it upon himself to run this experiment singlehandedly about every fifth game the Thunder. The results have been less than encouraging and usually initiate a round of public hand-wringing about the way he’s suffocating the life from Durant’s game. There is also a school of thought that arguing about who each team “belongs” to is a hypothetical pissing-match that serves no purpose other than covering everyone in hypothetical urine.

But there is something there, like it or not. Westbrook is fantastic and inconsistent. He clearly struggles with finding a balance between asserting his own dominance and facilitating Durant’s. If he could do away with any pretense of traditional point guard-ism, see the Thunder as his own possession to exalt or destroy, have his responsibilities narrowed to complete destruction of the opposition, think of the freedom that could allow. He could shed traces of shame that come with his wrecking ball act, be completely absolved of any responsibility for collateral damage.

There would be certain amount of freedom available for Durant as well. The failures of the team would no longer be his. No longer would his slender shoulders be forced to bear the weight of Kendrick Perkins and Derek Fisher. With that load lifted he could float around the court, dropping in feathery jumpers, sniping any survivors from Westbrook’s explosions.

Let Westbrook be Westbrook. And let the Thunder be Westbrook too.