Bygones: Letting Go of the Westbrook Years
The Daily Thunder Yearbook (sneak peek)
Revisit the Daily Thunder archives as we dust off the heartbreaks, thrills, and mysteries that have made the NBA's youngest franchise one of its most storied.
What if?
That’s a common question tossed around about the Thunder’s first eleven years in Oklahoma City. What if Portland drafted Kevin Durant? What if the trade of James Harden never happened? What if an injury to Russell Westbrook’s knee hadn’t interrupted Oklahoma City’s 2013 playoffs? Or Serge Ibaka’s strained calf hadn’t thrown off their 2014 playoffs? Or Kevin Durant’s broken foot hadn’t blown up their entire 2014-15 season? What if there were no cap spike in the summer of 2016? Or no Klay Thompson explosion weeks before?
You probably have your pet what-ifs of the smaller, more controllable variety. What if Sam Presti had picked up a better two-guard any of the years after Harden’s departure? What if he made a different coaching hiring or firing decision any point along the way? Speaking of which, what if Scott Brooks hadn’t insisted on playing Kendrick Perkins while the modernizing Heat were small-balling the Thunder to death all the way back in the 2012 Finals–which would shockingly end up being OKC’s first and last Finals appearance of this era.
It’s an entrancing question–what if?–but a punishing one. When you follow a team so close to glory, every woulda coulda shoulda ensnares you in the moment and won’t let go, even years later. There will no doubt be grizzled Thunder fans telling their grandchildren about the Game 2 missed foul call against LeBron James.
There are positive refrains of this question, though, in Oklahoma City. What if Russell Westbrook had not committed to stay with the Thunder in the wake of Kevin Durant’s exit? What if he hadn’t burgeoned into a triple-double machine and captivated MVP voters and OKC fans with a miraculous 2016-17 season? Would the team have survived in its notoriously small market? Would the front office have been able to pivot to a more promising rebuild in 2019, or would the relatively spoiled fanbase be able to stomach such a teardown had they not been eased into it with three star-filled seasons after the Durant gut punch?
An amicable split
This is why, despite the string of disappointing postseason exits, it’s all smiles between Thunder fans and Russell Westbrook. There wasn’t a prenup, but it worked out as if there was. Westbrook became a less extreme version of Durant before him: a Thunder player coming up short before moving to a more legitimate title contender who happened to be a longstanding Thunder rival. The team was left with more than nothing this time around: picks, players, and a more earnest goodbye campaign from Russ. An amicable win-win.
It’s worth noting that this time, asset recouping aside, the main difference in the tenor of the goodbyes has been from #0 himself. Regardless of which trade-demand timeline you believe, Paul George left for greener pastures and Westbrook didn’t channel the anger of a scorned franchise like he had post-KD.
Russ was cool with it. He was cool with leaving himself, too. So were the fans. Apparently no one needed a sequel of the defiant, OKC-versus-everyone, “I’m coming!” Westbrook movie. I think we know why: it would’ve been a lot worse than the original.
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