MVP Or Not, Russell Westbook Deserves Your Love And Admiration

Here’s a question for you to consider as March is swept away by April and the NBA season reaches its final days: do the numbers help or hurt your appreciation of Russell Westbrook’s current greatness?

The Oklahoma City Thunder guard is in the midst of one of the greatest individual NBA seasons ever. He will enter the season’s final month averaging a triple-double, something only one man has ever done in the league’s history. With eight games remaining, Westbrook is creeping up on that same man — Oscar Robertson — who had 41 triple-doubles in his historic 1960-61 season.

As of Wednesday night, Westbrook has 38.

The pursuit of these milestones, the quest for double-digit numbers in statistical categories, is viewed in a variety of ways. Some claim our obsession with base-10 roundness isn’t a proper evaluation of one’s importance in a basketball game. Other players like James Harden are having similarly-impressive seasons with better numbers in other categories less engrained in the traditional basketball box score.

There are ways to discount what Westbrook is doing as selfish or even perhaps detrimental to his team, if you’re willing to dig deep enough. Haters, as we all know, will find ways to hate.

That many of Westbrook’s triple-doubles often seem routine is impressive enough, but the highlights have been downright historic. Westbrook has had perfect shooting nights from the field, surprising even himself. He’s had other teams’ fans openly rooting for him to get his numbers, almost like a baseball crowd coming around to a pitcher with a no-hitter going.

His latest triple-double on Wednesday came on the second furious fourth-quarter comeback of the week for Westbrook and the Thunder. Down as much as 21 in the second half, Westbrook led the largest comeback since the Thunder arrived in Oklahoma City. He had 19 of OKC’s 30 fourth quarter points and engineered a perfect end-game to force overtime.

With OKC trailing by two with 13.7 seconds on the clock, Jerami Grant fouled Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic. The Swiss center made the first free throw and missed the second to push the lead to three. Westbrook picked up the rebound and raced for the opposite basket. Everyone in the building knew if there were a shot, Westbrook would take it.

Two Magic attempt to guard him. Thunder teammate Steven Adams isn’t setting a screen so much as standing a few feet away wondering what the hell Russ is going to try next. So he puts up a sho – of course – that falls true to tie the game at 102 and forces overtime.

As the Thunder pulled away in overtime on the strength of seven more points from Westbrook, he picked up his 10th rebound of the game. His 57 points was suddenly the most anyone in NBA history has scored with a triple-double, another historic achievement in a season full of gaudy numbers.

The major narrative pundits seem left wanting in this season is a triumph over former teammate Kevin Durant and the rival Warriors. But Westbrook’s head-to-head matchups against Golden State have been ultimately underwhelming. And even at his current level of play it seem like asking too much of Russ to make the Thunder competitive against that team.

Still, the NBA season we’ve had has been unquestionably weird. The two best teams, the Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers, seem shaky and uncertain on some nights. Both teams look fatigued or disinterested; sometimes it’s a combination of the two.

By comparison, watching Westbrook struggle through 31 losses despite his overt brilliance is oddly thrilling. There are times Russ looks chained to this hapless Thunder team, like against Golden State last week. There are times when Westbrook is Sisyphus, working to cut a 22-point Warriors lead to 12 in the third quarter before resigning to the bench with a 15/8/8 line in the box score and a minus-25 for the night.

And then there are the moments in which Westbrook carries Oklahoma City to sudden heights like leading a comeback against the Dallas Mavericks to win on the strength of a 14-0 run. Coming on the heels of a disappointing MVP duel with James Harden and the Houston Rockets, the game was a reminder of the superhuman abilities Westbrook has had in so many games this season. When he’s right, he’s Atlas.

It’s so easy to slip into hagiography when talking about Westbrook because it feels necessary to rectify the fact that he’s made putting up numbers like this seem so normal. Westbrook’s brilliance, the sheer volume of statistics piled up again and again, is one of the rare points of consistency in a season where a dynasty improved and the NBA Finals matchup is still largely considered a foregone conclusion.

Others can make their argument more succinctly and without all the mythological references.

There are more than enough people out there who don’t think he’s MVP material, but Westbrook’s claim to the acronym remains valid. He’s got Robertson’s blessing to match or even beat his triple-double records. And we won’t know who is named MVP until the NBA awards ceremony on June 26 anyway, well after the regular season is over.

So screw it. He might not win MVP, but what matters is that Westbrook has eight more games in this season and then hopefully more than four in the postseason. We are running out of games to see something special in action. Russell Westbrook’s feats are something we should take time to appreciate whether he’s determined the most valuable anything to anyone.

No matter what hardware Westbrook does or doesn’t take home, it’s important to note that he’s done this entirely his own way. The Thunder are his, moored to his every rebound and field goal attempt. Where Golden State has its chemistry issues and the Cavaliers have their defensive woes, Oklahoma City is an island unto Russel Westbrook’s every whim.

Whether it’s a night of perfection or a messy, overbearing performance with occasional brilliance, Westbrook has been allowed to obsess over the untied shoes of children and do things his way. And we may never see another season like it again.

There’s something extremely satisfying about that, something even a vote in June can’t diminish.