Russell Westbrook has lastly silenced the critics by taking part in completely in contrast to Russell Westbrook

When Voltaire revealed the novel Candide in 1759, he doubtless didn’t count on it to satisfy a lot resistance — and for a lot time. It was banned virtually instantly in Paris. Inside just a few years, the Roman Catholic Church banned it. However the true shocker was the banning of Candide within the Soviet Union, then later the US in 1929. (The postal service refused to ship it to a Harvard French class after brokers learn the e-book.)

Regardless of all of it, Candide offered in addition to a restricted version Jordans drop on SNKRs. Nevertheless, by the point it was unbanned in the US in 1959, a clear 200 years after its publishing, it was not so in style, not less than exterior of educational contexts. Its controversy appeared to have outlived its mainstream readership. However with its contempt for misinformation and ignorance, it has arguably by no means been extra related.

Russell Westbrook is on an identical journey throughout the mainstream NBA discourse. Maybe greater than any participant since Kobe Bryant, his type of play has been a lightning rod for controversy. For a few years, he was a prism, extra of a mirrored image of the person viewer than an goal reality unto himself. He was your favourite participant’s favourite participant, with a various assortment of hoopers starting from Donte DiVincenzo to Victor Wembanyama to Ja Morant calling him their favourite at one level of their lives. In the meantime, some extremely gifted writers and analysts have inferred that he’s dangerous to his personal crew’s possibilities. Maybe no participant has ever higher symbolized the hole between the true hoopers (love him!) and the spreadsheet warriors (his true taking pictures share!).

Neither facet has been clearly flawed, both. Russ is a genius, and he’s an inefficient scorer. Consequently, the previous MVP has all the time been the determinant of his personal future. Up to now when his groups have gained, it has been to a larger-than-normal extent due to his advantage. On the similar time, when his groups have misplaced, it has been to a larger-than-normal extent due to his errors.

Then, over time, all that controversy seemingly drifted away like fog below the solar. Perhaps it was as a result of Westbrook was not an MVP-caliber participant, and possibly it was as a result of he left the Los Angeles sports activities media ecosystem. However both method, the dialog round him as of late is rather more muted. He has develop into, like Candide, a subject comparatively free to debate. Simply in time for individuals to not actually be taken with having that dialogue.

But, for the primary time in virtually a decade, Westbrook is an important contributor on a title hopeful. He hasn’t performed 10 or extra playoff video games since 2016, when Kevin Durant was his teammate on the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder. In the meantime, the Nuggets have performed fewer than 10 playoff video games in a run simply as soon as since 2019. They’re tied for the second-best document within the West (43-25 as of publishing time), and just lately thrashed the Thunder in a contest of MVP hopefuls. Westbrook began in that sport, placing up 16 factors on 10 pictures, including 7 assists and 5 rebounds, and he gained his minutes, by way of plus-minus.

And likewise maybe for the primary time, Westbrook is not the determinant of his personal future. He doesn’t determine how the Denver Nuggets play. His isn’t the robust hand of destiny. He’s simply one other position participant. Jokic decides how far the Nuggets go, not Westbrook.

Westbrook has gathered the third-most video games in NBA historical past during which he makes six or fewer pictures, and makes an attempt 18 or extra, a stat that features each the common season and playoffs. He’s behind solely Joe Fulks and Bob Cousy, and simply forward of Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson. But what number of such video games does he have as a Nugget? Zero. He’s solely tried 18 pictures or extra thrice as a Nugget, taking pictures 49.1% from the sector in each contests. Gone is this idea of him taking pictures his crew “out” of a sport.

Westbrook can also be taking the bottom charge of mid-range pictures of his profession, simply 21%, which is within the tenth percentile for his place. Simply 4 years in the past, half his pictures got here from the mid-range, close to the highest of the league. A career-low 7.9% of his possessions finish with a shot or turnover out of isolation, but these possessions are scoring at a charge of 0.92 factors per strive, which is the second-highest of his profession. (Word: that monitoring knowledge begins in 2015-16, so it doesn’t cowl his full time within the NBA.)

In the meantime, a career-high 8.8% of his possessions finish with a shot or turnover out of a lower, scoring 1.28 factors per probability. That frequency can also be a profession excessive by a mile, and for the primary time it’s been bigger than his isolation frequency (7.9%).

Consequently, Westbrook’s efficient field-goal share is the highest it has ever been in his profession. These are the markers of a participant who’s altering his sport to suit his crew. The Westbrook of his MVP days remoted a ton, ran pick-and-rolls 50 or 60 instances a sport, and virtually by no means lower off the ball. This Westbrook is totally different. He doesn’t dunk anymore, with solely 21 on the season — one fewer than ground-bound Jokic. Now, Westbrook is rather more of an off-ball participant.

It has lengthy been an axiom within the NBA that you must “let Russ be Russ,” with even former head coaches publicly avowing the precept. However that is arguably the primary time {that a} crew is not letting Russ be Russ. It really works as a result of he’s letting Denver be a greater model of itself. The route of adaptation has switched, with participant now suiting crew reasonably than vice versa.

It additionally helps that Westbrook is taking a career-high share of his pictures as nook triples, and likewise making a career-high 45% of them. He’s nonetheless lacking from above the break, however he takes fewer of these, and he’s such a ferocious downhill driver and cutter that he nonetheless threatens the protection from these areas even when he’s a non-shooting menace.

On the similar time, he has develop into an impactful defender — not all the time positively, however not resting on that finish anymore both. He is ready to weaponize his athleticism on that finish in ways in which different shave-on-the-rim level guards like Derrick Rose and Ja Morant by no means may. He generates defensive moments that find yourself within the field rating, with his steal and block charges, in addition to defensive rebounding, throughout the seventy fifth percentile for his place.

Older level guards merely don’t do that — Westbrook’s 2024-25 season is simply the second time in NBA historical past a degree guard age 35 or older has reached his steal and block charges. Add in Westbrook’s rebound charge, and he’s solely the fifth level guard in historical past to achieve such thresholds, it doesn’t matter what age.

He can rise to the event of huge matchups, similar to when the Nuggets used him — a degree guard — as a major defender on many possessions towards 7-foot-4 huge Victor Wembanyama (He has guarded Wembanyama for extra possessions this season than some other guard within the league). He gained his minutes throughout a two-game sequence and picked up 5 steals and a block.

This isn’t to say Westbrook is ideal. He can go to sleep on the defensive finish. Regardless that he may be glorious because the low-man helper, and at tagging the curler or closing out to the nook, and transferring by means of the rotations, he can be late in these high-focus patterns. He can get again lower.

However that is what a useful position participant seems like. Not good, however potent in his position. Westbrook has dominated his minutes alongside Jokic, and the 2 mix nicely. They each go to one another, with numerous little tiki-taka, small-space cuts and dishes and floaters. There’s a mind-meld between the 2.

Westbrook has not proven the flexibility to steer the crew with Jokic off the ground, as his web score alone with out the Nuggets’ megastar plummets deep into the damaging. He turns into a simulacrum of the participant he as soon as was, along with his utilization skyrocketing bigger than that of some other Nugget with out Jokic. His charge of 2-pointers which can be assisted disintegrates from 54.4% when Jokic performs to 24.2% when he doesn’t, which means there’s an enormous quantity extra self-creation requested of Westbrook when Jokic is off the court docket. It doesn’t go very nicely, as his efficient field-goal share evaporates from 58.5% with Jokic to 43.0% with out, falling by a bigger margin than that of some other Nuggets’ rotation participant.

However once more: He’s not a star who assaults the rim as if future is searching a chasedown block. Not anymore. He’s not supposed to hold lineups with a crew’s greatest participant off the ground. He’s solely supposed to suit into what already works. And that he’s doing splendidly.

Voltaire’s Candide is a seminal textual content of realism. The world is what it’s — not the very best of all worlds, however the one we have now. So have a tendency your individual backyard. Westbrook has realized that lesson himself as his profession has aged. He has tended his backyard and tried to not be the very best participant, thus turning into the very best model of himself, not less than at this stage of his profession. And due to that success, in addition to the controversy round him shifting elsewhere, we will lastly see Westbrook not for what he represents, however for what he’s: an excellent and fallible participant, and one who’s lastly able to matter once more within the playoffs.