It was exactly one year ago that I wrote about Russell Westbrook attending a Taylor Swift concert and singing along to “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” It was totally innocuous and it was great seeing Westbrook be an unabashed Taylor Swift fan.
August 26 is apparently ‘National Russell Westbrook Sings Taylor Swift Day’
Russell Westbrook may have started his own tradition.
Little did everyone know how much would change since then.
On Thursday night, Westbrook recorded himself singing the same song on Snapchat. With the Kevin Durant wound still healing among Thunder fans, you can’t help but wonder if he’s secretly dropping a message here.
It’s easy to jump to that conclusion that he’s giving a nod to Kevin Durant. And it doesn’t even have to involve that Taylor Swift song — it could be any song about a semblance of freedom from whatever is holding one back, like Lil Uzi Vert’s “Do What I Want”:
To that I say: Feel free to interpret that and make more “Westbrook throwing shade at Durant” jokes, but that is probably not what’s going on here. Westbrook (and Durant) know anything they do that hints at bad blood (wink) will be analyzed to death. And that kind of distracts us from what we really want: the first post-Durant meeting between the Thunder and Warriors (November 3), and Durant’s eventual return to Oklahoma City (February 11) (oh come on.)
Those games will be the peaks of this story line, not the sideshow social media shenanigans. In the meantime, just enjoy Westbrook’s love of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, who, ironically, have their own feud that people read into on social media.
Also, if Westbrook sings “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” again, one year later from now, then we should really make this an official holiday.
