NBA Playoffs 2019: A final referendum on Russell Westbrook

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) waits for the beginning of a game against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center in Chicago on Friday, Dec. 7, 2018. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) waits for the beginning of a game against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center in Chicago on Friday, Dec. 7, 2018. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune) /
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Russell Westbrook plays basketball with a furious sense of determination, an evident passion and a speed that at times borders on recklessness. He sometimes seems like a black hole, threatening to subsume all other happenings on the court, pulling them towards himself and his own sense of purpose, making the nine other players on the court subservient to his own whims. In the process, he has established himself as one of the most omnivorous, domineering players in NBA history, filling the stat sheet and setting the tone for every game he plays like few ever have, or have even felt inclined to. It seems like, deep in his mind, he truly believes he is the most qualified player to have the ball in his hands, to take the deciding shot and is truly content with letting the fate of his team rise and fall with his success or failure. It’s a trait that’s admirable, but it’s a trait that may also be self-defeating.

When Russell Westbrook was drafted by the Oklahoma City Thunder, it was to be Kevin Durant’s running mate. Despite being a player with more raw talent than refined skill upon his entry to the NBA, Westbrook developed into an All-Star by his third season, establishing himself as a more than worthy co-star to Durant. They formed a tandem that seemed perfect in theory — Durant as the steady hand who could get the Thunder a bucket whenever necessary and Westbrook as the firebrand who could propel the team to heights they would not be able to reach without his manic energy pushing them forward. They looked destined to contend for years, and I guess in hindsight they actually did. However, championship windows open and snap shut, often without warning.

The summer after their lone Finals appearance, the Thunder traded James Harden to the Rockets and injuries to Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and Kevin Durant in three subsequent seasons played a role in undercutting their championship aspirations. By the time the three were all finally healthy in the same postseason, it was four years since they made the Finals and they ran into a buzzsaw of a Warriors team that had gone 73-9. Durant then left and Westbrook decided to go all out, winning the 2017 MVP and averaging a triple-double all three seasons while Durant was plying his trade in the East Bay. If Westbrook had been limiting himself in any way in previous seasons, he cast off those restrictions in order to realize the truest, fullest version of himself and his potential. It was exhilarating to watch, seeing one man put the entire burden of a franchise’s success on his back while willing them to victory night after night and achieving statistical feats not seen in over five decades. Yet questions and doubts still remained. Sure, he could win the MVP and average a triple-double and take the Thunder to the playoffs, but what then?

With most players, you can imagine small fixes that would improve their game, making them even more potent than they already are. There’s the talk about how much better Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ben Simmons would be if they were able to make jump shots, about how D’Angelo Russell just needs to get to the free throw line more often, and how Donovan Mitchell needs to learn to finish at the rim more proficiently. However, with Westbrook, his success on the court is so interwoven with his style of play, his desire to win at all costs — but on his own particular, often inexplicable, terms — that it’s hard to imagine a more efficient or steady Westbrook that does not eliminate what also makes him so special in the process.

When Durant and Westbrook played together, they often appeared to be playing different games or at least playing by a different set of rules than the other. In theory, they should have balanced each other out, but this never happened. Instead, it was a perpetually tenuous pairing. Despite their shared desire to win a championship together, they nevertheless always appeared to be at cross purposes, as if they could not quite agree about the best way to pursue their goal.

At this time, supporting Westbrook seemed almost countercultural. Fans and analysts debated if the Thunder would be better off trading Westbrook and if he was holding Durant back. In these conversations, Durant was always the safe bet, but there were some fans who prized the gloriously unpredictable over the prudent. Durant was the personification of inevitability while Westbrook was the unknowable. Durant was the obvious choice for those who valued efficiency and steadiness while Westbrook ingratiated himself, without ever trying or caring to, to those who cared more about style, those who were transfixed by a chaos that could be confronted and admired but never truly contained. Durant felt like the perfection of an ideal, an evolutionary marker of scoring prowess; Westbrook was something entirely new, something no one had ever thought to desire or imagine. It belied the imagination that he could play as he did, with so much reckless energy, and never expend it all, and perhaps even more staggeringly, make that recklessness work for him as well as it did.

Westbrook can indisputably raise a team’s floor, dragging them seemingly singlehandedly to the postseason through sheer force of will. The question remains what happens once he gets there. Is it even possible to surround Westbrook with players who aren’t immediately swallowed whole by his personality and eccentricities? Or have the Thunder just lacked good shooting and secondary ball handlers to lighten his load and cover his mistakes over the last few seasons? Of course, perhaps if Westbrook doesn’t tear his meniscus in the first round of the 2013 Playoffs, or if Ibaka doesn’t suffer a calf injury right before the 2014 Western Conference Finals, or if Durant isn’t forced to miss all but 27 games of the 2014-15 season due to a variety of foot injuries, or if Klay Thompson doesn’t make 11 3-pointers in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals then none of these questions would even seem necessary. Such is the nature of the NBA and all the contingencies that play into who wins a title, the factors of chance that can so easily overshadow and undercut the accumulation of on-court talent.

Almost every playoff game Westbrook has played since the Thunder announced themselves as a young team to watch out for in the 2010 Playoffs has felt like a referendum on first his style, then his ability to contribute to a winning team, and now, on his legacy. Westbrook could retire tomorrow and still be a Hall of Famer, though his lack of a championship would perhaps haunt him in a way that it wouldn’t other stars who never won it all because it could be argued the reason for that lack of a ring was that he and his style placed a definite cap on how much his team could achieve. It would not be argued not that he just never found the right situation or supporting cast, but that there was something particular to him that hamstrung whatever team he was on. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s arguable, and for his critics, that’s enough. His style may be both what makes him great and his inherent vice.

This postseason, with the Warriors looking less dominant than they have since they won the 2015 championship, the West appears as open as it has in years, at least in theory. It’s still the Warriors and then everyone else, but it appears like everyone is vulnerable which possibly means the Thunder could step up and make a deep run, at least to the Conference Finals if not further. With Paul George playing better than ever, if Westbrook goes on a hot streak without his worst impulses undercutting his great ability, that could be enough to propel them past other teams who may be better top to bottom but lack the star power the Thunder possess. It would be a vindication of a sort, not that he appears to need or desire it.

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Regardless of what happens this postseason, there is something I will always admire about Westbrook though. He refuses to bow to common sense and instead embraces his wildness, perpetually walking on the borderline between success and failure, refusing to consider that the latter is even a possibility. If he is going to win a title, he’s going to do it on his own terms. Westbrook would rather lose while staying true to himself than sacrifice something crucial in the process. Perhaps his legacy is not contingent on a championship though. Perhaps instead, his truest achievement is winning an MVP his way, playing with such passion in every moment that he never takes time to consider the possibility of regret or doing things another way. In a league where efficiency has come to be treasured above all else, Westbrook is a testament to the importance of style, of the inability to be tamed, of the valuing of means as much as ends. He is a flame that refuses to be extinguished, knowing full well that fire can destroy as easily as it can illuminate.