I’m sure it’s not easy. In fact, it’s pretty commendable how well he’s been doing it. Playing in the shadow of one of the NBAs brightest young stars and defending scoring champ, Kevin Durant, has to be a near impossible feat. Yet, somehow, Russell Westbrook has been taking it in stride so far. Sure you’ve heard the name, but maybe you’re unfamiliar with the game. In his third campaign in the Association, Russell Westbrook has officially arrived and is probably the most underrated player in the NBA.
Last year, Kevin Durant made history by becoming the youngest scoring champ the NBA has ever seen, barely legal to buy a vodka and cranberry at the bar. KD took the league by storm by scoring 25+ points in 29 consecutive games on his way to averaging 30+ points a season ago. He then took on the globe at the FIBA World Championships while securing Gold for the U.S. Coming into this season, he had so much hype around him that he led preseason MVP talks and even managed to pick up a stalker along the way. Translation: the NBA is Durant’s for the taking. With a guy like Durant having so much going on, it’s tough to realize that he has a teammate that is very quietly averaging 23.2ppg and 8.2 assists. Russell Westbrook flies under the radar, but he deserves some spotlight.
The NBA has become a point guard heavy league of late with guys like Chris Paul, Deron Williams and more recently, Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo a top everyone’s list of the best young PGs in the game. But no one mentions Russell Westbrook. Neither did I, until now that is. Before last night’s game against Minnesota, Kevin Durant missed the two previous contests for Oklahoma City nursing a bad ankle. Last Friday was Durant’s first game out as his Thunder squad was in Massachusetts taking on the Celtics in a nationally televised game on ESPN. On paper, the Celtics should roll all over the Durant-less Thunder. Actually, they should beat the Thunder at full strength too. Such wasn’t the case Friday night.
The Thunder handled the Celtics 89 – 84 and it was all because of Westbrook. The game was close down the stretch and he simply outplayed the most talked about PG in the league: Rondo, who had 14 points and 7 assists. Westbrook hit big shot, after big shot to the point where you forgot about Durant for a stretch of time. He would finish with 31 points and 6 assists, and seemed very comfortable shouldering the load. Almost as if he’d been there before.
The next game with Durant still out, the Thunder took on Milwaukee, where they would narrowly win behind Westbrook’s 18 points and 6 assists. This was a nice showing for Russell, but the Boston game was officially his coming out party.
Even before this year, Westbrook showed flashes at the FIBA World Championships as well, and is a guy who I think is a top 5 game dunker in the league. Although he was drafted #4 overall out of UCLA, he was somewhat unheralded. At the time, I thought the pick was too high and I still did so up until this year. He is finally earning his keep and is one of the strange cases where a guy proves to be a better NBA player than college player.
As long as Westbrook is in Oklahoma City alongside Durant, he will remain a very underrated player. I’ve been known to refer to this team as Thunder University because of their very young core. The other members of the core, Jeff Green and James Harden, are also pretty good players. With Green, I feel as if he’s widely regarded as the best player on that team not named Kevin Durant (although I disagree), so people know him. Harden is clearly the fourth best of the core so he’s rated right where he should be. That left Westbrook.
If Westbrook were not playing in Oklahoma City, we’d hear his name more. We would know that he has raised his career averages this year from 16.3 points and 6.8 assists to the 23.2 and 8.2 that they are today. However, since he plays in possibly the smallest market in the league and behind possibly the brightest young player in the game, he goes unnoticed for the most part. The one silver lining for Westbrook is that Thunder University should be a perennial playoff team for years to come, so the masses should slowly realize that he is truly one of the best young PGs in the game today.
If you’re looking for your everyday, predictable basketball talk, then go somewhere else, because Kevin Burke of The Kevin Burke Project brings provocative, thought provoking content about basketball as only he can. Kevin also hosts The Hoop Doctors weekly podcast show, which you can subscribe to for free on iTunes. Follow Kevin on Twitter and Facebook
