 What's the word, y'all? I cannot believe I'm making a Russell Westbrook video right now. This is gonna be a lot different than the other Westbrook videos you've seen on the internet over the last year or so, because I'm not gonna be hypercritical of bro. And listen, I'm not saying that he's void of criticism because of course this year objectively was disastrous for him and the Lakers organization, but I think we've gone too far. Why do I always have to be the guy to tell the fans you've gone too far? Again, if we wanna talk exclusive about 2021, 2022, sure, let's do that. But y'all just talking about legacies and going back to 2016, 2017, you're bragging. Because I think, and listen, I'm guilty of this as well as an NBA fan. Players are only as good as our last memory of them. I'm guilty of it, but it's just not true. And it got me to the point where I wanted to go through Russell Westbrook's career and rank his seasons from the worst of his career to the best of his career. And this is highly inspired by Anthony Fanteno. He does this exact thing, but with artists talking about different projects. So I'll put that link in the description. What I found out in my three days of research, if you wanna call it that, is trying to figure out which season was better. 2012, 2013 is like pulling teeth. So there's a lot of subjectiveness in this video, but this is my goddamn video. So I'm gonna do what I want. I did call it my boy, Cone, three Cone. Links is in the description. He's one of the biggest OKC fans that I know and one of the biggest Russell Westbrook fans I know. And asked him, bro, what are some things that I might have forgot as a fan that you remember as a super fan? So he helped me out. So shout out to Cone. Leave a like, subscribe if you want to. It's really your decision. The worst season of Russell Westbrook's career is the 2021-2022 season with the LA Lakers. Boom, mic drop. This is a bad year for Russell Westbrook. Like I said, you can go and watch a multitude of videos on the internet right now talking about Russell Westbrook and the season. It was the worst of his career by my standards. Coming into the year, he was ranked as the 29th best player in all of basketball and people were like, oh, there's hella disrespectful. Russell Westbrook and LeBron James and Anthony Davis got this new trio and they're calling themselves 360. They was ass. You just need to be a top 10 seeder that have a chance at the playoffs and they failed to do that. And it's not strictly on Russell Westbrook. You have injury stuff. You have the rest of the roster being as old as anybody in America. But this team underperformed and Russell Westbrook was a part of it. If you type in Russell Westbrook Lakers on YouTube, there are a multitude of videos basically showcasing all of the low lights of Russell Westbrook season. Some of them as long as 20 minutes long. This is bad. We haven't seen that happen in any other year of his career. Also, I don't have a script, by the way. I have bullet points, but I dropped out of school because I don't do scripts. So shout out to all the YouTubers that do deep dives and write scripts. You are way better than I am. And one thing that is true about Russell Westbrook's career, especially once we get past the MVP season. And one thing that I can be critical of Russell Westbrook for pretty much since he left OKC is the lack of want to change for the betterment of the organization. I thought that Russell Westbrook was his best when he was screening for LeBron James. He would do it six times in one game and then he'll do it six times over the next 10 games. He's just never really adjusted. And because of that, we get to the point where at summer league where the star player LeBron and Russell Westbrook refused to even talk to each other. So that is the worst year of his career. The second worst year of his career is the 2008-2009 season, his rookie year in the NBA. I remember watching his draft very, very vividly because if you didn't know, my Chicago Bulls are the first overall pick. And I was sitting around just praying that the Bulls took Derek Rose and not Michael Beasley because Derek Rose from Chicago. And at this point, I'm 10 years old. So I don't know much about who's, but I wanted to see Derek Rose. And if you look at that entire draft board, there's only one, at least in the first round, there's only one guaranteed lock to make the Hall of Fame. And that is Russell Westbrook. I know you're having some conversation about Kevin Love. I know you're having some conversation about MVP Derek Rose. There's only one bona fide first-ballot Hall of Famer, unanimous Hall of Famer, and that is Russell Westbrook. And one of the things about Russell Westbrook coming into this season is people like, oh, he's not a natural point guard. When he was drafted, he talked to Stephen A. Smith and said, I am a point guard. And he made it his mission to become one of the best point guards in history. But even with that said, it is the second worst year of his career because he was a rookie that was extremely wrong. The best moment of his rookie season is late in it. He went against the Dallas Mavericks and he got his very first triple double. And bro, never look back. He got a little taste of what a triple double could do. And he's like, I want to get all of them. And listen, I ain't got no sources, but I think in the locker room after that game, I heard Dirk say, that boy got that dog in him. You feel me? That boy got that dog in him. And it took literally the last second of the game where he got his 10th rebound. But it happened. The next year on the list is the 2013-2014 season, where Russell Westbrook missed about half of the year with orthoscopic knee surgery. That's all I can really say. Once we got to the playoffs, he was great. They ended up losing to the San Antonio Spurs, but more than that, he was basically just the number two to the eventual NBA MVP, Kevin DeRant. But since he only played like half of the season, I can't really put this any higher. I wanted to put the season a lot higher than what it is, but it is the 2020-2021 season with the Washington Wizards. This man, there was so much charm to this season. The Wizards started off the year 35 and 28 and finished 34 and 38. So they were a self-hundred team, but it was enough to get into the playoffs. And he promised his teammates months before that he gonna get them in the playoffs, man. This is the year where he became the all-time leading triple double-gitter pass in Oscar Robertson. And it was also the year that I became aware of the Russell Westbrook cycle meme. If you're unaware of what this meme is, it's where Russell Westbrook starts off every season where he's bad and people are questioning whether or not he's still got it. And then he has a month where he's creeping his way up and people are starting to realize and then he boom, back into superstardom. That's what this season was for the Wizards. And he had a game we had 35 points, 21 assists and 14 rebounds versus the Pacers. Also, I do want y'all to go to YouTube and type in Russell Westbrook versus Pacers because some of the best games of his career happened against Indiana. I don't know what the organization did to him, but he really takes it personal. But ultimately, there's a team that didn't do much. They got to the playoffs, but that was it. I was actually rooting for Russ a ton because there was a moment in the playoffs series where a fan poured a bunch of popcorn on Russell Westbrook. And again, the fans not understanding boundaries. So at that point I was like, let's go Russ. But they were still going against the 76ers who were the way better team. But Russ helped carry them to the playoffs after a really, really bad start. And now we move on to the 2009-2010 season. This is sophomore Russell Westbrook. And when I tell you, this is one of the most fun seasons to research because there were so much that went on. This team went from a 23-win team to a 50-plus-win team. And the West of Congress was so elite that 50 wins got them the eight seed. And they matched up against Kobe Bryant. 50, imagine winning 50 and having to match up against the eventual champions because that's exactly what they did. And again, they went against the eventual champions and they held their own. They took them all the way to six. And in game six, Palga saw him hit a game when in tip layup, whatever you want to call it. And I rewatched that entire game. And yeah, down the stretch, Russell Westbrook did some bone head shots, but we talk about Russell Westbrook here. That's one of the things that Russell Westbrook does. But there's a moment, and there's nothing to do with Russell Westbrook. There's a moment late in this game for like one minute to go where Ron, our test takes a three. But in the corner, we have a wide open Kobe Bryant and Kobe was hot. Kobe wanted that ball and Kobe took and made some of the toughest shots. We love Kobe being Bryant, rest in peace. But bro, that game was another one of those Kobe classics. But like I said, one thing you're gonna realize throughout this is that Russell Westbrook has lost in the playoffs to the eventual champions a lot in his career. I mean, a lot. It starts off right here the second year of his career against the eventual champion, L.A. Lakers. But you don't hear me say eventual champions a couple more times. But year number two, he blossomed and became sixth and most improved player, which is a duh. Next on my list is the 2018-2019 season with OKC. Actually, the last year, we saw Russ in that jersey. Everything happened so fast between Paul George getting traded to the Clippers and everything like that. I didn't think that it was gonna be the last time we'd see Russ, but it was. And you know who did it to him? Damien Lilla with the wave off. But in this season, Russell Westbrook decided to do the thing that he did with Kevin Arendt throughout his career was just take a back seat to allow Paul George to finish top three and MVP. And that's one of the reasons why this is higher because individually, this is like a bad and Russell Westbrook terms offensive season when it comes to scoring. But the fact that he allowed Paul George to be Paul George and become and have one of the best seasons of his career is a lot testament to Russell Westbrook ability to allow his teammates to be great. Next, we have the 2019-2020 season with the Houston Rockets. Listen, y'all might see this as high. I wanted to put it higher because this season was so much fun for me as a fan. And I mean as a fan of the NBA because again, I wasn't a big Russell Westbrook fan. But this team decided to do something no team has ever done in trading all of the big man on their roster. They said, Robert Coventon, we gonna bring you in and we gonna have you play center because we wanna allow Russell Westbrook to do what Russell Westbrook does. And what did he do? He became one of the first guards to lead the league in paint scoring in history. He did that. And in January or February of that month, after they traded Clinkapella, Russ Average 33 points. This is a two month span by the way, 33 points, seven rebounds, eight assists. This team decided to do something that no team has ever done before. Yeah, we're going towards small ball, but all time small ball. They were doing that. And him and James Harden together was kind of cool for a moment. But then it got to the playoffs. He heavily struggled. I think he averaged like 15 points in the playoffs. But I'm just going off the vibes. And for me to see Russell Westbrook just running to the basket and dunking on people, that was fun. Next we have the 2010-2011 season. I wanna remind people that at this time, Russell Westbrook was just 21 years old. And this is the first time he had made an all-star game. Ended up being all NBA second team. And guess what? We got to the playoffs. So what did they do? They lost to the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks as a second time in his career, basically back to back seasons where he lost to the eventual champions. And this is around the time that criticism starts to build. Because once you get to the point where your team is successful and in this point, the OKC Thunder were, people are gonna start the nitpick. And we started to see articles written about Russell Westbrook shooting so much. Why does Russell Westbrook think he's the best guy on the team? But we also saw the opposite, where people were legitimately having the conversation of who is the best player on the OKC Thunder. That was a timeline, ladies and gentlemen. We're talking about a 21-year-old Russell Westbrook. Also, people questioned if he was the best point guard in all of basketball at 21 years old. That is elite because I want you to go back and look at that season and look at all the great point guards that were still in the NBA. And people were questioning whether or not Russ was number one. An amazing season for Russ. The next season is 2017-2018. This is the first year of the big three. Paul George is on the team now. And guess what? Carmelo Anthony is here, man. And listen, we about to go run it up. They did it. I'm pretty sure they lost in the first round to a rookie Donovan Mitchell. But this season, individually, was so dope for him coming off his MVP season to still see him put up some pretty good numbers. But again, they did lose in the first round, but there was the one game. They were down 3-1 to the Jazz and they were down by 25 points in the third quarter. The season is practically over. And in the third quarter, Russell Westbrook decided to turn up, brohead three after three after three, and they were down by 25 points and they went to go home game for them and they won. Again, they ended up losing the series, but that game in itself, to see Paul George take over to see Russell Westbrook take over was cool, but you know how to end it. I mean, Russ, they got no championships. You know how all of these seasons end. The 2012-2013 season had the potential to be the best season of his career, like legitimately. The team won 60 games and Russ was the start and point guard and he was one of the best players in all the basketball. And this is the year after their finals run when they lost to the Miami Heat. They get to the playoffs again as a 60-win team and then the Patrick Beverly thing happened. And like everybody across America as an NBA fan heart dropped because a lot of us predicted that OKC will be right back in the finals, but this time they would win. And to have Patrick Beverly go out there and do that, obviously hurt the chances because they ended up getting eliminated in the second round to the Memphis Grizzlies and the season was void. And then we get to the 2015-2016 season and this is one of my favorite seasons of Russ's way. I mean, again, this is revisionist history here, but there were so many moments throughout this year where Kevin Durant defended Russell Westbrook that that's what made him leaving at the end of the season so mind-blowing for so many people. Listen, they were up 3-1 against the Warriors and they lost. And in these post-game interviews, it was K.D. Russ versus the World. K.D. Russ versus Steph Curry. They're talking about Steph Curry's defense and Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are laughing at the fact that the people are saying that Russ was an underrated defender. Russell Westbrook for the series started saying, listen, Steph Curry's a great shooter but he ain't nothing that I ain't never seen before. They got the famous Mark Cuban incident. Well, Mark Cuban said, hey, there's only one superstar OKC and it's Kevin Durant and Kevin Durant gave a legendary response. He's an idiot. Don't listen to this. He's an idiot. But Russell Westbrook was first team All-N-B-A to season and he won the All-Star game MVP. Something he's done a lot in his career. Russ is one of those dudes that he don't care that it's supposed to be the off-time for the All-Star game. He wants every award that he could potentially get. And in some of these All-Star games, Bro is putting up 40 point triple doubles. Like this is a random regular season game. He plays hard. That's one of the things you can say about Russell Westbrook. We're down to the last three seasons of Russell Westbrook's career. And at number three, we have the 2011-2012 season. This was the finals run where everybody fell in love with the core of the OKC Thunder. Russ was young. KD was young. James Harder was young. Sergey Bakker was young. And everybody saw that they were destined to win a championship eventually. They made it all the way there. And this run, this playoff run versus the Western Conference was as legendary as it gets. Russell Westbrook was amazing. But when you're going against LeBron James, Chris Boss, and Dwayne Wade, you know, your chances of winning that series is not great, considering the other guys are basically in their prime. And y'all barely owed enough to drink alcohol at this point. But again, everybody thought they will be back. And that is why to this day, I don't look at a young team that makes a run and think to myself, they will be back because you never really know what's going to happen. James Harder gets traded. And at three years later, Kevin Durant goes to the Warriors. They never got back, y'all. They never got back. Four of a patch of Beverly. I'll tell you if it wasn't for Patrick Beverly. I gotta hold my phone for these two seasons because I got so much to say about the final two seasons. The best two seasons of Russell Westbrook's career. Number two, the 2014-2015 season. In this, when he was the scoring champ, it was all gonna be a second team. And again, the all-star game MVP. Kevin Durant went down in an injury in the preseason. And then in the second game of the season, Russell Westbrook also went down with a hand injury. Russell Westbrook eventually came back after missing 14 games. And he still helped this team win 45 total. Now again, we talked about the Western Conference. As I mentioned earlier, it took 50 wins to get the 18th in and 45 was not good enough to make the playoffs. But a lot of people saw this season for Russell Westbrook that if he was in the playoffs and if they wanted a couple more games, he could have been the MVP of the entire league this year. This was the birth of masked Russell Westbrook. You got untucked Kyrie. You got masked Russell Westbrook. This was some of the best version of him. He got hit in the face, boom. He had to have face surgery. And three days after face surgery, he was back on the court and he dropped. 49 points, 16 assists and 10 rebounds. Three days after surgery. It was against the 76ers doing the heavy tank error, but it's still NBA basketball. It still counts as a 49 point triple double if you ask me. I don't care if the best player on the court for them was Rhondie Hollis Jefferson. Actually cannot confirm whether or not Rhondie Hollis Jefferson was in this game. Don't listen to this. He's an idiot. But he still had to get the stats and he did that. At least that's one thing you can say about Russell Westbrook. He always gonna get his stats. And then like I mentioned, into the All-Star game, he put a 41.16 and a 10. He's one point shy of breaking the all-time record for most points in the game. Eventually broke by Anthony Davis. I'm not mistaken. But again, if it was a basketball game too, he played boas out there hooping. And this is something that I didn't remember myself. So shout out to my boy, Cone, because he really, really came through. In February, there was a game where Russell Westbrook put up 48 points and lost to an eventual game winner from Anthony Davis. Now, this game winner is basically the second best highlight of Anthony Davis' career behind the game winner that was in the bubble. This game winner, randomly in February, was the reason that OKC did not make the playoffs. Because OKC and the Pelicans ended up having the exact same record and the tiebreaker went to the Pelicans on the double clutch three-pointer from Anthony Davis. It's extremely, extremely unlucky, but it was a reality that, listen, every single game matters whether you like it or not. Throughout NBA history, there's this one meme about David Robinson where he was competing for the scoring title and in the last game of the season, his team spoon fed him so much so he could put up 71 points. So I think it was Shaq that was second. That Shaq had no chance of winning it. And boom, David Robinson was the scoring champ that season. And I'm not saying it's exactly the same thing, but you do know that Russell Westbrook was gunning for that scoring champ, especially when you look at the numbers. In the last five games of the season, he averaged 32.2 points per game to win the scoring title, including a game versus the Pacers. Like I said earlier, bro, hate the Pacers, where he scored 54 points, which is great. He also took 43 shots to get there. Like, he was gunning for those things while he was in second place. James Harden, he kind of slowed down only averaged 22 points over those same time period and boom, boom, boom. And we get the scoring title for Russell Westbrook. We also start to see some of the greatest of all time to show their love to Russell Westbrook. This is from Alan Iverson, pound for pound, the best player of all time. I'm the biggest Westbrook fan I think there is. You know what I mean? Because he reminds me so much of myself as far as his heart and landing on the line night in and night out. Just a guy that's going to bring it every single night. And that is from, again, Alan Iverson. The world recognized that Russell's really that dude, but at that point, he couldn't do it by himself and just having a little bit of help from Kevin would have helped them make the playoffs, but they didn't, but individually, what a season. And then lastly, you knew that the best year of his career was going to be the 16-17 MVP year. Even looking back on it, I am still amazed at how clutch this season was. And here are some clutch moments from SB Nation, shout out to them. The thunder went down by 14 when Russell Westbrook had a game time shot and won the game in overtime versus the Magic. They were down by 12 in the final three minutes and 30 seconds and he had a game winner to beat the Mavericks. He scored the last 15 points in the buzzer beater to beat the Nuggets. And one little caveat that people forget about that, that game was so significant for the different Nuggets because since they lost that, their chances of making the playoffs went to zero. Russell Westbrook in one single night averaged the most triple doubles in a season and also killed the hopes for the Denver Nuggets. That game was insane. He himself went on a 15 to 0 run in the final two minutes and 30 seconds to beat the Grizzlies. He scored 11 of the final 13 points in a game winner versus the Jazz. He scored 19 of the last 22 points for OKC to beat the Blazers. And that's not to mention like all of the dunks, all of the crazy passes, like everything encompassing to an MVP. He averaged 31.6, 10.6 rebounds and 10.4 assists and he led that team to 47 games. And even in the moment, people are questioning whether or not he should have won MVP. Me included, I think on my podcast in that time, I gave my MVP award to James Harden in the time. But again, having revisited his history and going over and watching these games again and watching these moments again, undoubtedly he was the MVP. I look at that roster and it is God awful. Like it has some names like the Montessor bonus Victor Ladipo, both of them ended up being all stars eventually. But this point in their careers, they were very far from it. This is before Victor Ladipo did his full workout routine to get his shape. This is rookie, the Montessor bonus who averaged like six points per game. They did not have a lot and he got them to the sixth seed. I have nothing but respect for that season because it might be one of the best individual seasons I've ever seen ever. When you think about the load that he had to carry, you think about the success, you think about the stakes, Kevin Arrant just left to go to the Warriors. He's like, I'm going to do all of this by myself and even beat them in the regular season when they were yapping at each other. Like altogether, this was the best year of his career. You know, we're going through all these games. There are so much that I couldn't talk about for the sake of time. Just in general, Russell Westbrook, like I said earlier, is a bona fide first ballot hall of famer where it's not even a real question. And the fact that people are going back in his history and trying to relive these moments and trying to talk bad about these moments blows my mind. And I wasn't a Russell Westbrook fan going into this, but leaving it, I am. I think there's a lot to be said about a player that cares about his teammates as much as Russell Westbrook does. Even in this moment where he is on the trade block, when everybody in LA wants him gone, he pulls up to summer league and he's coaching the young guys. Even in this moment where everybody wants him gone, including the star player on the team, I know LeBron never said it, but listen, we all noticed. He pulled up to Darvin Ham's first presser when Darvin Ham was announced to be the head coach. And even though he might personally want out of LA, he's still dedicating everything he can to this team. There has to be a lot said about the health of Russell Westbrook because other than the one season where he only played 46 games, this guy has been a consistent guy to play 95 plus percent of seasons. 82 games, 82 games, 81 games, 89 games. This guy has been as hardworking and as durable as anybody. And yeah, I don't really know what the future of Russell Westbrook really looks like. Will he be on the Lakers? Will he be on another team? People are speculating that he might not even get another contract if his Lakers deal falls away. I can say with confidence that Russell Westbrook was one of the greatest to ever pick up a basketball and I got nothing but respect for him. So let me know what you think. Whether it be about this video, whether it be about Russell Westbrook, I'm all ears and I appreciate you. I appreciate Kohn, I appreciate Prince Prodigy for putting in all the time and editing this video and I appreciate you for watching. I swear I'd be flowy, bro. I'm just...