Russell Westbrook’s freedom is actually a burden

After Russell Westbrook finished with 27 points, 14 rebounds and 17 assists in a win against the Knicks in late November, he gave his postgame interview while sitting on the bench. He was too exhausted to stand.

His performance in that game meant that he was officially averaging a triple-double for the season. The question of whether he was capable of chasing down Oscar Robertson — with Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka gone and the Thunder solely dependent on him — was the burning narrative the minute Durant decided to leave for Golden State.

Right before the campaign started, Westbrook and Jordan Brand released an ad that seemed to be in response to Durant’s departure. A minute-long short of Westbrook, his brother and others dancing to Lil Uzi Vert’s “I Do What I Want.”

It’s a masterful piece of marketing that relies on the years-held beliefs of Westbrook fanatics — fans and media alike — that he was being held back by playing with other superstars. While he achieved plenty with Durant, Ibaka and Harden, he would never reach his full potential unless he was allowed his own team.

Thus, Let Westbrook be Westbrook.

He did this when Durant was injured in the 2014-15 season, becoming just the third player in NBA history to record back-to-back 40-point triple-doubles. Forty, 13 and 11 against the Blazers on Feb. 27; then 49-15-10 against the 76ers on March 4. The other two players to have achieved this feat are Michael Jordan and Pete Maravich. Westbrook dropped five triple-doubles in six games, averaged 33-10-10 over a 10-game span, and topped the season with a total of 18 triple doubles—five more than second-place Draymond Green.

In Durant’s absence, Westbrook showed how much more he could do when given the chance. This only intensified the belief that this requirement to share the light with Durant was holding him back.

Against his wishes, he was granted that freedom. It’s been insinuated that Durant left because Westbrook was too selfish, too domineering, and blinded by his own talent. And so Durant, for his own sake and future success, went to play with the supposedly selfless players in Golden State instead of staying with the villainous, domineering Westbrook.

But Westbrook fought for Durant to stay. He courted him as strongly as any of his other recruiters because he seemed to know much more about the limits of a lone wolf situation than the onlookers forever intrigued at the thought of Westbrook having the Thunder to himself.

No matter, he responded to Durant’s exit and his new reality by signing an extension to stay with the Thunder and going ultra-Westbrook. He took his 2014-15 self and improved on it. He managed to somehow surprise when it seemed silly to think he could reach another level.

But that’s what happening. He’s averaging a triple-double, thrusting himself to the top of the MVP ladder, and dragging his team into contention.

It’s incredible to witness an athlete — a human being — that doesn’t seem restrained by the same physical limits as everyone else. Westbrook is doing things that would be unreasonable in video games. Absurd in the imagination. Unbelievable and comical in reality.

What he’s doing, though, hides that fatal flaw that was present in his 2014-15 performance—a truth that he must have known when he appealed for Durant to stay: That this supposed freedom is a lie, a trap disguised as liberation.

With Durant (and even Harden), Westbrook managed to reach the NBA Finals and the Western Conference Finals twice. Their failures only came when one or the other was injured, or in the very early years of their careers. Westbrook and Durant—counter to the narrative that they clashed—worked extremely well together on the court. They had the potential to be better, but the evidence of their fruitful partnership is obvious.

On his own—even with the capable supporting cast of Victor Oladipo, Enes Kanter, and Steven Adams—it’s hard to see Westbrook reaching those heights again. This season will end as it did two years ago, with Westbrook performing superhuman feats while his team ultimately falls short. Maybe they make the playoffs this time, but the grander goal of a title (or even contending for one) won’t be a reasonable prospect.

Miroslav Holub, a Czech poet and scientist, explored this delusion of freedom in his book “Intensive Care.” In the feature titled “Although,” he writes:

“We demand freedom also in regard to what we have freely chose. But this freedom goes against itself. This freedom means confinement in the approximate, the impossible, the unreal; confinement in futility...This romantic human is not human, but a retreat from the human. It is not a fulfillment of being, but a regression to being without needs, without fulfillment, without essence. Freedom is not the return to emptiness but fullness of being. Freedom is not regression from integration and determinacy but realisation of the higher forms of relatedness. And dependence. In the reverse case a new-born child would be more free than Beethoven or Comenius; and an opossum than a new-born child.”

The higher form of relatedness in this context is Kevin Durant with the Warriors. His game didn’t diminish with his relocation to the Bay Area. He’s still in the MVP race, he has improved defensively as he’s being asked to use the full breadth of his talents, and he’s doing all of this on a team that many would deem the favorite to win it all.

Durant has found the true freedom that allows him to be at his best, while part of a system with great ambitions. He helps them realize their potential, and they return the favor. Unlike Westbrook, Durant doesn’t always have to be at his best for his team to succeed. The freedom from that pressure allows him to pick and choose when and where to make his impact.

The most closely aligned precedent for Westbrook’s current plight was Kobe Bryant of 2005-06.

After Shaquille O’Neal and Phil Jackson’s departures (with rumors accusing Kobe of pushing them out), Kobe went Full Kobe. In 77 games, he averaged 35.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.8 steals. He scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks, 81 against the Raptors, and finished the season setting team records for most 40-point games (27) and total points scored (2,832). He won the scoring title, finished fourth in MVP voting and willed the Lakers to a 45-37 record.

At the end of the following 2006-2007 season, he asked for a trade. He cited being lied to and not being surrounded by “appropriate” talent as his reasons. Even Kobe came to realize that he couldn’t do it alone.

It wasn’t Westbrook’s wish that he should be in a similar predicament, but he embraced it by signing an extension with the Thunder. His championed loyalty locked him in. And it can’t be discounted that he’s doing everything in his power to help his team succeed and fight against the burdening reality of futility.

It’s just disheartening to know that he has to be this good in order for his team to survive. He must chase Oscar Robertson, not because the context of a good team allows him the freedom to do so, but that the freedom that should have allowed him to be at his best has trapped him in this exhaustive endeavor. He will have one of the best statistical seasons ever...and yet he will fall short of the NBA Finals, or anything him and Durant achieved together. That can’t be what he wants.