Russell Westbrook, we hardly knew ye.
No, seriously. Russell Westbrook played one season with the Houston Rockets. So why does he feel like such an integral part of their recent past?
There are likely a few reasons. Westbrook leaves a huge impression. It was also, at times (for reasons that were largely not his fault), painful to watch. Perhaps most importantly, his lone 2019-20 season as a Rocket was the final, dying gasp of the James Harden era.
But James Harden didn’t retire (as of this writing)
yesterday. Russell Westbrook did. When The Beard’s time comes, expect me to publish a piece that largely amounts to “waaaaaaaa”.
My feelings on Westbrook are, probably much the same as a lot of readers, more complicated. My best friends know not to bring up the 2015-16 MVP race around me unless they’re in the mood for a diatribe. In what world is an extra rebound and a half more important than 10 wins? So if the Rockets had schemed for Harden to get rebounds just a bit more often, he averages the forever arbitrary triple-double and gets his MVP?
Ugh. Blarg, even. Let’s move on. For all of his flaws, Westbrook was a transcendent talent.
That’s the point here.
Westbrook was a force with the Rockets
Let it be said that the trade Daryl Morey made to acquire Westbrook could be the first case study in a textbook called “How to not Make an NBA Trade”.
That’s not Westbrook’s fault – that’s Morey’s fault. When he retires, I’ll write a piece about how he meticulously and brilliantly crafted one of the best teams in the NBA only to knock it over like a petulant child who’d grown tired of playing with a sand castle.
The most egregiously horrendous part of the deal was attaching draft capital to flip Chris Paul for Westbrook. The other issue was that Westbrook couldn’t play alongside Clint Capela, which led to the Rockets’ infamous micro-ball experiment.
When they drew the Lakers in the second round of the 2019-20 postseason, we all knew it was over, whether we were willing to admit it or not. It just made clear, intuitive sense. The Lakers started two guys who were 7’0″ tall. Beating them with zero players over 6’7″ was perhaps literally impossible.
Somewhere in the annals of The Dream Shake, I wrote a piece about how I wish the Rockets had, instead of blowing it up and trading Westbrook for John Wall, gone out and got Marc Gasol, or Dewayne Dedmon, or even Paul Millsap the following summer. The same iteration of the team with a stretch big could have made a real title run in 2020-21. What can you do?
We are now 461 words into this article, and precious little has been done to commemorate Russell Westbrook. Again, this is a player with a complicated legacy.
Overcomplicated, even.
February, 2020. Capela is gone, Robert Covington is in. P.J. Tucker is officially the shortest man to ever start at the 5 in the NBA. Westbrook averages 33.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.0 assists per game while shooting 54.9% from the field.
We’re too smart in 2026, or at least too knowledgeable. There is always context. Westbrook had limitations that made winning games more difficult than his counting stats suggest.
Yet, there has to be some breaking point where raw statistical output outweighs everything. Westbrook spent his entire career breaking that point. Say what you want about his approach, playstyle, limitations – the man is averaging 30, 10, and 10.
The man was a human singularity. An iconoclast. He was going to do it his way:
And honestly, for the most part, it worked.
It wasn’t Westbrook’s fault that Tucker was 6’5″ (which, to be clear, is not Tucker’s fault either). It’s not even fair to say it’s his fault that he couldn’t shoot. If you’re questioning Westbrook’s work ethic, you’re asking the wrong questions. It is a skill that he tried and failed to hone.
It’s a curse that befalls all superstar zero-time NBA champions. Their legacy is relitigated into the ground. There will be many think pieces about why Westbrook couldn’t get over the hump.
Let’s not forget that getting over the hump requires extraordinary luck. Westbrook is an NBA Finalist. He went to the Conference Finals three times. That’s a lot of winning for a losing player.
Full disclosure: This is not one of my favorite players in NBA history. If anything, this is a man who, to no fault of his own, potentially damaged the career of one of my favorite players in NBA history. Still, we should all remember Westbrook for what he was: One of the most unique talents in NBA history.
It didn’t take more than a season of Rockets basketball to see that.
