Legacy Lookback: Russell Westbrook

Former Thunder great Russell Westbrook decided to retire this season after a storied 18-year NBA career, bringing his electric and vacillating career to an end.

He announced it on August 12, in the most Westbrook way imaginable — no buildup, no media games, no manufactured tour-of-praise during one final season. He did it without saying a word, in a social media video announcement narrated by Michael B. Jordan.

It was a shocker all across the NBA landscape, but especially to the flatlands of Oklahoma, the setting of Westbrook’s coming-of-age tale.

There might not be another player who perfectly embodies the mold of a coming-of-age main character more than Russ — flawed, misunderstood, but so engaging and palpable. Those qualities made Westbrook such a celebrated character in NBA cinema.

The Seattle SuperSonics selected Westbrook with the fourth overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, then moved the franchise to Oklahoma City just days later.

The Oklahoma City Thunder’s first rookie was a 19-year-old, raw, athletic South-Central Los Angeles native with a soft voice but deafening game out of UCLA.

He displayed astronomical athletic ability during his time with the Bruins, but there were concerns about his shooting ability, skill set, and discipline. He was inefficient, out of control, and hard-headed — yeah, but what about those dunks that rocked the rim so hard the reverberation would incite chills on the arms of everyone watching?

What about the hustle play where he scraped along the hardwood floor for a loose ball, then let loose in a yell at the crowd so profound it could make a nihilist see life’s purpose?

It was those spiritual qualities, those unexplainable ways of Westbrook, that would eventually be cited in a sports philosophy.

It’s those things that make sports matter.

Russell Westbrook made basketball feel truly alive.

Ask his biggest fan or his biggest hater.

That’s what makes Westbrook one of a kind.

Much can be made of the incredible development Westbrook undertook throughout his career that turned him into one of the best visionaries the sports world has ever seen. An automatic mid-range pull-up jumper that a generation of young players would practice to death at their local courts, or a boogeyman presence felt by millions whenever he came downhill at full force.

Everyone, Oklahomans especially, knows that those basketball qualities are manifestations of the truth of Westbrook as a person.

His unapologetic fervor and drive for greatness are still there. It just comes in different forms. 

It comes in fashion, philanthropy, his investments in Oklahoma City, and the Westbrook Academy.

It comes in the way he has continued to put his name, money, and energy behind the city that watched him grow from a teenager into an NBA superstar.

That is the part of Westbrook’s story that lies beneath the triple-doubles.

Before he was an MVP, he was a kid, and Oklahoma City was a kid, too. It was a juvenile city learning how to adapt to being a player on the national stage for something other than tragedy.

The Thunder were still trying to figure out what they were supposed to be. Westbrook was still trying to figure out what he was supposed to be.

The Thunder had suddenly gone from a brand-new franchise in the middle of Oklahoma to one of the most exciting young teams in basketball. Westbrook wasn’t finished growing, either. He was learning how to coexist with superstars, learning how to lead and, eventually, learning how to stand alone.

When Kevin Durant left Oklahoma City in 2016, the dagger was struck in the heart of every Oklahoman. The city was hurt; it needed a hero, and Westbrook met the moment.

In the moment, the kid who had arrived in Oklahoma City with questions about his shooting, discipline, and decision-making had become the most valuable player in the basketball world, winning the MVP award in 2017.

Westbrook had spent years being told what he couldn’t be. Too reckless. Too emotional. Too inefficient. Too stubborn. Too much.

Yet, somehow, all of those supposed flaws became part of the mythology.

His greatest quality and greatest weakness were often the same thing – he cared too much.

That’s what made him exhausting. That’s what made him exhilarating. That’s what made him Russell Westbrook.

And that’s why his relationship with Oklahoma City became different from the ordinary relationship between a star athlete and his city.

His community work reflected the same intensity he brought to the court. Through his Why Not? Foundation, Westbrook invested in education and youth initiatives, including Russell’s Reading Rooms. He became involved in schools, families, and communities across Oklahoma City.

The message was consistent, and it meant something.

Why not?

Why not believe in yourself?

Why not give a kid the opportunity to dream bigger?

Why not take the same relentless pursuit that made you a basketball player and use it to build something that lasts longer than a career?

Westbrook has mentioned time and time again how his greatest and truest self is the person he was born to be.

In 2019, Oklahoma City traded Westbrook to Houston. He would make multiple one-year-stops around the league until a couple of weeks ago, when he decided his basketball career would come to a close.

The coming-of-age story had reached its inevitable conclusion. The teenager who had arrived alongside the birth of the Thunder was now a grown man, leaving behind a city that had watched nearly every stage of his development.

There will never be another athlete like him. There will never be another human being like him.

There will never be another 19-year-old kid arriving in a brand-new NBA city, growing into an MVP, frustrating its fans, thrilling them, investing in them, leaving them and flat-out loving them.

What remains are the shards of memories — the screams, the comebacks, the ridiculous shots, the impossible athletic feats, the kids who grew up watching him, the people whose lives he touched away from the court.

The hero isn’t born. He’s made.

And for Oklahoma City, Russell Westbrook, the hero, will always be the kid who grew up here.