Russell Westbrook is one of the NBA’s greatest players ever. The 2016-2017 regular season MVP is a nine-time all-star, a two-time scoring champion, a three-time league leader in assists, and has accomplished a list of feats that are too long to list. But, unfortunately, Russell Westbrook is known for his off-court controversies just as much as his on-court brilliance and, once again, has gotten into a heated off-court debate with a Phoenix Suns fan who called him “West-brick.” The team Westbrook currently plays for, the Los Angeles Clippers, is playing a playoff elimination series against the Phoenix Suns. Westbrook had a bad game where he made three shots on nineteen attempts in a game-one win against the Suns. The situation didn’t escalate between Westbrook and the fan as there was a heavy security presence when Westbrook told the fan to “watch your mouth (expletive).”
New Yorker Eli Litvak said, “Russ is a soft guy who can’t win in the playoffs even though he’s as great as he is.” Westbrook’s opponents in this current playoff series spoke glowingly of him recently, saying: “People [are] always going to criticize when you’re successful and doing your thing for this long,” Durant said. “Somebody’s [going to] always find something they don’t like about you, but Russ has been resilient his whole life. He comes to work, doesn’t say much, just come hoop. When he retires, people are [going to] tell the truth about how they feel about his game. Right now, the fun thing to do is to make a joke out of Russ, but how he’s been playing since he got with the Clippers shows everybody who he is. “I feel like the only people that do that are the people who don’t know basketball and don’t know what it’s like to compete,” Paul said. “I know, for me, Russ is one of my closest friends, and so, people that do that, talk crazy, probably wish they could be in that situation.” In the past three games with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, Westbrook scored more than twenty-seven points, had 5+ rebounds, 4+ assists, and at least a block. These stat lines are evidence of Westbrook’s fantastic talent and why he’s polarizing, as he wasn’t able to will his team to a win and gave ammunition to people like Litvak worldwide.
