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Russell Westbrook, we hardly knew ye.
No, seriously. Russell Westbrook played one season with the Houston Rockets. So why does he feel like such an integral part of their recent past?
There are likely a few reasons. Westbrook leaves a huge impression. It was also, at times (for reasons that were largely not his fault), painful to watch. Perhaps most importantly, his lone 2019-20 season as a Rocket was the final, dying gasp of the James Harden era.
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But James Harden didn’t retire (as of this writing) yesterday. Russell Westbrook did. When The Beard’s time comes, expect me to publish a piece that largely amounts to “waaaaaaaa”.
My feelings on Westbrook are, probably much the same as a lot of readers, more complicated. My best friends know not to bring up the 2015-16 MVP race around me unless they’re in the mood for a diatribe. In what world is an extra rebound and a half more important than 10 wins? So if the Rockets had schemed for Harden to get rebounds just a bit more often, he averages the forever arbitrary triple-double and gets his MVP?
Ugh. Blarg, even. Let’s move on. For all of his flaws, Westbrook was a transcendent talent.
That’s the point here.
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Westbrook was a force with the Rockets
Let it be said that the trade Daryl Morey made to acquire Westbrook could be the first case study in a textbook called “How to not Make an NBA Trade”.
That’s not Westbrook’s fault – that’s Morey’s fault. When he retires, I’ll write a piece about how he meticulously and brilliantly crafted one of the best teams in the NBA only to knock it over like a petulant child who’d grown tired of playing with a sand castle.
The most egregiously horrendous part of the deal was attaching draft capital to flip Chris Paul for Westbrook. The other issue was that Westbrook couldn’t play alongside Clint Capela, which led to the Rockets’ infamous micro-ball experiment.
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When they drew the Lakers in the second round of the 2019-20 postseason, we all knew it was over, whether we were willing to admit it or not. It just made clear, intuitive sense. The Lakers started two guys who were 7’0″ tall. Beating them with…
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Publish date : 2026-08-14 09:41:00
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