It’s Overrated Week here at Section 237.
Today we look at the NBA’s most overrated player, Russell Westbrook, and why we can’t just sit back and enjoy the triple-doubles.
The athlete
Russell Westbrook is all that remains of a once promising core in Oklahoma City. Following Kevin Durant’s departure last Summer, speculation arose about how Westbrook would respond.
Many pointed to the 2014-15 season. Durant missed significant time due to ankle and foot issues, and Westbrook responded with a monstrous 28.1 point/ 7.3 rebound/ 8.6 assist season.
What would he do with an entire year as the driving force behind the team?
The season
Russell Westbrook is averaging a triple double through 73 games.
Barring something out of the ordinary, he will be the first player to average a triple double over the course of a NBA season since Oscar Robertson in 1961-62.
When an athlete makes history in this kind of spectacular fashion, you watch.
Westbrook is an absolute force. Last night he spearheaded a McGradyesque comeback in Dallas. In a word, it was awesome.
Not in the way we throw around the word awesome, but in the dictionary defining, just met the love of your life, your non-sports fan grandmother will notice type of awesome.
The apostles
Russell Westbrook is awesome. His fans suck.
“It does not signify either punchy independence or heightened sophistication. It is just merely, plainly right. If you blogged it back in January, then you do not have any more MVP blogs to publish.” – Albert Burneko, Bad Take Artist in Residency at Deadspin
People can’t leave well enough alone and appreciate how ridiculous this season has been for Westbrook. He’s got to have hardware, and it has to happen now.
As a kid I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Rockets legend and all time short guy Calvin Murphy.
Calvin Murphy loves Oscar Robertson. Oscar Robertson was Calvin Murphy’s favorite player. He used to wax rhapsodic about watching the last man to average a triple-double.
Bill Russell won the MVP in 1962. That didn’t make the stories any less amazing. Then again far fewer keys were banged kvetching about it.
Section 237 