When I initially decided to say something about Russell Westbrook, it was mostly critical because I was mad and had been sending emails and text messages about Russell pulling up for contested jumpers in crunch time of close games. It happened most noticeably in game four against Denver when the OKC point put up thirty shots and missed 18. OKC ended up winning the series 4-1 so it wasn’t a nasty strike on Westbrook’s young résumé; just another example of his frustrating tendencies. And that’s why I sent all those angry texts and emails: Because three years into the league, playing opposite the league’s top scorer in Kevin Durant, Russell still felt the need to gun from the point spot.
I say “still” because I’ve been watching OKC closely since they left Seattle and what used to be a cute little hiccup in his first two seasons has developed into something stranger and more difficult to define. First and second year point guards aren’t supposed to be polished. They make mistakes like throwing errant passes, pushing the break too fast and charging over veteran defenders. They shoot poorly from the field and do the wrong things at the wrong time. Basketball heads nod and agree that they’ll get it at some point. If they don’t get it, they’ll eventually be replaced by someone who does. Now in his third year as a player who’s already won a gold medal at the 2010 World Basketball Championships, already named to the all-star team, is already considered elite at his position; we expect him to improve this singular part of his game.
Frustration leads to speculation, so I wondered what was motivating Russell to chuck up contested threes in close games when Kevin Durant was standing 15 feet away. Is he pulling a G-Money move to Durant’s Nino Brown? We all know how that turned out. Trying to prove to someone, anyone, that he could do the Durant? Is he trying to force his way out of the long shadow cast by Durant’s arms, legs and point-per-game average? Maybe it has nothing to do with Durant. Is he inept? Does he genuinely think it makes sense to pull up from 23 feet with Ty Lawson’s hand in his face when OKC is down 5 in Denver with under a minute left? Is he true a point guard?
Or is my frustration misplaced?
On any given day, Russell Westbrook is the third best point guard on the planet and on his bad days he’s still probably not much worse than fifth best. In terms of convention, he doesn’t fit the description. He doesn’t pass like his head is a giant eyeball seeing everything. He doesn’t lead like a general or a quarterback. He’s far from a calming presence on the floor (he’s led the league in total turnovers in two of his three seasons). He’s closer to a live wire whipping from baseline to baseline, bricking jumpers and collecting his own rebounds before defenders can even consider the boxout process. He’s never missed a game in three years which isn’t surprising even though he attacks offensive rebounds with bad intentions . By any statistical measure, he’s improved each year he’s been in the league.
Yet my text messages and emails are still met with mostly agreement. We agree: Russell Westbrook takes some dumbass shots at seriously inopportune times. We are a consensus, but through all my Russell Westbrook considerations, I can’t help but feel he might be onto something. The point guard he most resembles is Derrick Rose. Both PGs defy the position’s tradition by actively looking for their shots, but the difference is Rose doesn’t have Kevin Durant riding shotgun. He doesn’t have anything that even resembles Durant and as a result, every day in the United Center is Derrick Rose Day.
Which brings me to a place I didn’t think I didn’t think I’d arrive: Westbrook’s destiny and ceiling might be Derrick Rose’s 2010-11 season: MVP, best record in the league, all-star starter. He has the athleticism, a similar on-court mentality and damn near the exact same stats. If he truly believes he can do what Rose can do (he’s seen it up close at the World Championships), then he has a responsibility to himself to pursue it—potentially independent of Kevin Durant. Of course this goes against the grain of the selfless point guard who makes teammates better, but what’s an archetype to Russell Westbrook?
After all this, I’m no closer to understanding Russell Westbrook. I get it that he’s not a traditional point guard and I should adjust my expectations to him, not him adjusting his game to the expectations of his position. But until he’s got his own team or Durant’s sitting on the bench with six fouls or a boot on his foot, please Russell, do the right thing…whatever that is.
I’m not gonna lie. I didn’t dig into Ready to Die until after Life After Death had already been released. My hip hop journey started left and moved to the right, geographically passing over me in the process and so I was always catching up to the east coast. I was at the University of Iowa with a Case Logic book stuck full of CDs. Notorious was already dead, but when I threw on Ready to Die, it was like my Iowa City dorm room had been transformed into some grimy denizen in Brooklyn.
“Things Done Changed” is the introduction into the nightmares to come on Ready to Die, but here it’s a postscript for the Spurs. Biggie focused on the strapped youngsters changing the game, but he neglected to tell us about the old heads unable or unwilling to assimilate into the gun culture. The Grizzlies, with all their scrappiness, Brooklynese griminess, Tony Allens and Sam Youngs are the stickup kids:
…for the stupid motherfuckas wanna try to use kung fu/Instead of a Mac-10 he tried scrappin/slugs in his back and that’s what the fuck happens…
Yep, that’s what the fuck happens. From the Grizz bum rushing the Spurs in Memphis in game four to the Spurs sneaking by on a Gary Neal three in game five to the inevitability of Memphis stomping out the embers of hope in game six, the Spurs done changed. This isn’t anything new: teams age, superstars fade, Zbos come up and Ernie Johnson holds down the fort through it all. The incarnation of the Spurs that we know: the systematic offense (even you, Ginobili, with your behind the backs and violent head fakes, are systematic), constricting defense, the method, practiced and refined, perfectly improvised; this version is gone. It’s the same group of guys wearing the same jerseys and coming up with the same regular season results (61 wins and a number one seed in the west), but with different method.
The regular season is the key qualifier though. I always thought injuries and health would catch up with this iteration of the Spurs, but with the exception of Manu missing game one, the Spurs stayed as healthy as a team can after playing 80+ games and traveling across the United States for seven straight months. “Little motherfuckers with heat” may have pulled the final trigger, but they didn’t do the Spurs either.
Outside of San Antonio, the Spurs weren’t considered a strong option to win the title or even make the Finals. We know a fake when we see one and while you can’t fake your way to 61 wins in 82 games, you can fake being yourself. Time and circumstance forced Pop’s hand to come up with a new team out of old basketball players. And somehow he pulled it off with the second-most regular season wins in a 15-year career and the third-most in franchise history. The Spurs had slowly been trending toward this style over the past three or four years, but this season seemed more real and at times genuine because they were pulling it off so effectively. It’s almost harmonious for fans and analysts to see the Spurs in first place and be lulled into thinking they had returned for another voyage into the deep.
Then the playoffs started and the ruse was over. In terms of the Spurs postscript, the reverse-Biggie perspective, the Grizzlies have little to do with the Spurs’ aging wrinkles and saggy skin. If it wasn’t Memphis, it would’ve been Portland, Denver or OKC. Has a number one seed ever had so many poor potential matchups in the first round? The only two teams that matchup favorably for San Antonio are Dallas and New Orleans. This version of the Spurs relied on a magician’s bag of tricks: Manu’s leaning tow-on-the line two to keep hope alive in game five, his half-court shot in game six, his double behind-the-back dribbles—the same stuff he’s been doing for years. Only in the past, it was just one part of a larger ensemble. Manu went vintage in the 2011 playoffs, but it was a solo act. He stayed true to the game we’ve been watching for the past decade, but the rest of the club couldn’t keep up with his pace or rhythm. The Spurs fumbled In the fourth quarter of game six, dropping passes, miscommunicating on must-foul situations, were routinely beaten to loose balls and collapsed at the end with what felt like a sense of relief.
Change is inevitable, but doesn’t make it any less challenging or difficult to swallow. Today the future doesn’t matter in San Antonio any more than it does in Memphis. Both cities and fan-bases are stuck in the present for all the right reasons.
Dancing With Noah 