Russell Westbrook has had some historic and iconic moments in his career. But as great as his NBA journey has been, this season has been a complete disaster, and fans no longer seem to care about what he did in the past.
Westbrook has failed to live up to the expectations that come with playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. And, while the team as a whole has underperformed and he’s not the only guy to blame, he’s done little to help their winning cause.
Even so, it’s not like Westbrook still has to earn his stripes and demonstrate he’s a star in this league. Per Damian Lillard, he’s done more than enough to prove his worth and shouldn’t be questioned at this point in his career.
NBA News: Damian Lillard Stands With Russell Westbrook, Says He Doesn’t Have Anything To Prove
(Transcript via Fadeaway World)
“If I had to tell him (Westbrook) anything, I would just tell him to face the music with it. The criticism, it’s going to happen and you’re playing in one of the biggest markets, so I would just face it. Whatever the questions y’all ask me, whether I think it’s a dumb question or something that is self-explanatory or whatever, just face it and deal with it.”
“Russell Westbrook’s career and legacy is undeniable,” Lillard says. “That’s just the bottom line. The player, the career he’s had, what he’s accomplished, the things that he’s done, nobody else has been able to do it. With all these triple-doubles – I don’t care if you start chasing or whatever people wanna say. If I try to go every game and get a triple-double for a whole season, I can’t do it. And there’s a lot of other people that can’t do it either. That’s hard in itself to actually do it, whether you’re trying to, to do it or not.”
“It’s easy to, to kick somebody when they’re down and all that,” Lillard says. “But if I had to tell him something, I would just face it and just deal with it. But I do think it’s gone to the extreme, as far as it’s almost like people see something that they think everybody’s going agree with if they just talk shit about Russell Westbrook. So everybody’s just throwing they stuff at ’em and saying, you know, it’s going overboard at this point, in my opinion, like it is just crazy to me.”
Westbrook’s biggest problem has been his lack of accountability or the ability to adjust and adapt to change through the years. But his numbers and accolades speak for himself and he should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer anyway.
