Russell Westbrook’s sensational season transcended wins and losses

This season wasn’t going to end any other way for the Thunder. A team so dependent on the brilliance of one individual never had a chance in today’s NBA. The archaic formula could work in the regular season against other flawed teams and in an environment where the opponents are constantly changing.

But faced against a real Houston Rockets team in the playoffs, with an equally brilliant star and a good supporting cast, there was no other conclusion than a quick 4-1 exit.

We’ve seen varieties of this situation before, but never to this extreme. This severe reliance on one man was the result of losing Kevin Durant, which destroyed a team structure built to run on the talents of Durant and Russell Westbrook. The duo had been just one game away from beating the 73-9 Warriors and going to the NBA Finals.

With Durant in the Bay Area, the Thunder had to decide whether to rebuild or fight in vain. Westbrook, always seeing the impossible as a test rather than a dead end, could only choose one path. He was going to fight, and he’d bring his teammates as far as he could all by himself.

The Thunder were the biggest story of this year’s NBA season simply because Westbrook decided he would do everything in his power to make his team as competitive as possible.

If that meant having a once-in-a-generation season, so be it. If it required breaking Oscar Robertson’s triple-double record and blazing new trails in the history books with the highest usage rate in NBA history, so be it. If it meant leading the league in points per game, constantly dragging his team back from double-digit deficits and stressing himself to the physical, mental, and emotional limit, so be it.

He was going to go supernova in a lost season because it was the only way for them to win.

That’s what makes his season so compelling. This wasn’t Westbrook justifying the idea that he was held back by Durant. It was Westbrook trying to fill KD’s MVP-sized hole all by himself. He did so much because there was so much to do.

His partnership with Durant should have been so much more fruitful. Two contrasting styles and personalities on a new team shaking up the NBA world. They fought against the super Miami Heat in the 2012 finals, gave a hell of a fight to the evergreen Spurs twice, and took the best regular-season team ever to the brink. Had injuries and the Warriors not derailed their trajectory, KD and Russ could have won a title to validate their time together. That would have rightfully designated the duo as great, rather than as a tale of missed opportunities, bad luck, and a fractured friendship.

That left Westbrook to stick around and deal with the aftermath of that divorce.

In the post-game press conference after Oklahoma City’s tense Game 4 loss to Houston, Westbrook swatted away a question to Steven Adams about the Thunder’s performance when he was on the bench. Westbrook was trying to save his teammate from embarrassment, yet it was also a performance to signal to his teammates that he didn’t see himself as above them. He wanted to relay that they won and lost the same way: as a team working together.

But the team’s strengths and weaknesses were clear as day all season. Westbrook is its best player by a comically large distance. If he is not scoring or creating, the Thunder are lost. Westbrook’s demonstration couldn’t disguise that. Against the Rockets, this disability was put in the harshest light.

The Thunder built big leads with Westbrook in early and relinquished them in the few minutes he sat. When Westbrook tried to clean up his teammates’ mess, he’d spotlight the worst of his game. Playing from behind, with no one else to initiate the offense or get buckets on their own, he took matters into his own hands in the worst ways, shooting as much as possible. For three quarters, he was at his best. But eventually, exhausted by the burden of being his team’s only scoring source and tormented by the Rockets triple-teaming him, everything went to hell.

We’ve seen plenty of criticisms of Westbrook’s style as a result. Some carried over from previous seasons. Others could be proved wrong with the same on- and off-court numbers used to praise his counterparts. But in they rolled regardless.

He’s too selfish. He shoots his team out of games. He doesn’t make his teammates better. His triple-doubles are overrated because a handful of them a game are gifted to him. His achievements are empty because the Thunder still lose games where he does incredible things.

Yet look at what this selfish, stubborn, short-tempered, inefficient, and reckless player gave this season. This Thunder team is only eight wins worse than last year. Westbrook took them to the playoffs and provided countless highlights every single game. He turned the season into an action movie full of explosions, drama, emotions, fights, rivalries, subliminal messages, dancing, self-aware commercials, and so much more. He made a No. 6 seed a must-see team.

Suggesting he did nothing meaningful this year is boring. Everyone knew the Thunder weren’t going to win anything important this year. The end was never going to justify the means because the end was inconsequential. This was an attempt to see what the means looked like.

We’ve always been curious to see what Westbrook might actually do on his own. All the circumstances dared him to do something never done before. Yet he still emphatically shattered those expectations, making mockery of the limitations placed on the capacity of an individual player.

If you view Westbrook’s season through the standard lens of wins and losses, then it’s rightfully disappointing. But doing that misses its wonder entirely.

Ignore the delusion that all effort must have some tangible reward, that all means must have a definite end, and that there is only one winner and 29 losers. Ignore the idea that the only way to correctly play basketball is by being as efficient as possible.

Then you’ll realize we just witnessed a performance so spectacular, so unique, that it will take a lifetime to appreciate.