That story is from over six and a half years ago. It may no longer be accurate.
And you don't think it has anything to do with his development/growing into an frail (professional athlete standards) adult body.... oooook.
He's worked his way into the discussion with Curry and Harden for sure. I still think the obvious winner for this is Curry and unless he slumps big time will end up the case at the end of the year. Everyone points to how much more talented the Warriors are, but they completely ignore just how much worse every other player on the team is when Curry is off the court. They're a very deep and talented team, but he holds it all together.
One more thing. I seriously hate statistics like this when they ignore position context. 26/7/6 says a lot more about LeBron, who is distributing and reboudning above positional averages with those numbers, than it does about Westbrook. Half of the starting PGs in the league average 6+ assists and Russell's 2 more per game are much less impressive when you factor in how turnover prone he is. 26/7/6 for a PG that turns the ball over 4 times a game? That just tells me he's an above average rebounder.
He may even get a decent contract but it'll still end up being less than what he's worth. Right now he's the very definition of a perfect roleplayer and I'm even curious what he would be like with more usage. He's great around the basket and he shoots 48% on long midrange shots. That's insane.
Only Thunder fans are saying this. I don't get it. It's not like the competition out there is just "good" and a healthy OKC team is best ever levels. Even when both Durant and WB were on the court, they were still not looking like world beaters many nights.
There are a lot of analysts still picking them to win the West. It isn't a fan thing. When healthy they have 2 of the best 5 players in the league on their team. They might also be the deepest team after the trades too. It doesn't mean it will be easy, it will be a bloodbath. However, I'm pretty sure if you asked every team in the West playoffs which team they would least like to face in round 1, OKC would be named 7 out of 7.
And you think OKC is OK with playing GS or Memphis in the first round? GS went 3-1 against OKC this season. GS also has extreme depth. Fucking Andre Iguodala comes off the bench. PG is really the only spot where they're a bit light but it's not like Livingston sucks.
