Kevin Durant calls Russell Westbrook Thunder’s ‘best player’ after loss to Raptors
Heading into the 2015-16 NBA season, one of the most fascinating subplots in the league centered on how an Oklahoma City Thunder club already facing the significant adjustment from deposed head coach Scott Brooks to the newly hired Billy Donovan managed the healthy return of former NBA Most Valuable Player Kevin Durant to a prominent role while affording Russell Westbrook the space and opportunity to act as the world-breaking force into which he grew while Durant was sidelined by foot injuries last season.
The relationship between the two All-NBA performers has been the subject of much armchair analysis and strident speculation over the years, and while the men themselves have long presented a unified front in asserting the strength of their off-court friendship and on-court bond, but given Westbrook’s ascent into the league’s leading scorer and a top-five finisher in MVP balloting, and Durant’s summertime declaration that he’s still the best basketball player in the world, many still wondered how the in-game reintegration would work.
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The early returns have been both promising and mixed. Oklahoma City won its first three games, toppling its fellow Western Conference power, the San Antonio Spurs, on opening night and outlasting the Orlando Magic in double overtime behind 91 combined points from OKC’s dynamic duo. The Thunder have skidded a bit, though, falling to old pal James Harden’s Houston Rockets and coughing up a late lead to the very tough and talented Toronto Raptors at home on Wednesday en route to a five-point defeat.
After hanging a whopping 42 on the Raptors in the third quarter, Oklahoma City scored just 17 points in the final 12 minutes. Durant, who finished with a team-high 27 points, took just two field-goal attempts in the fourth; Westbrook, on the other hand, went 1-for-8 in the frame with two turnovers. Here we go again, right?
Well, not according to Durant, who referred to Westbrook as “our best player” in his postgame scrum with reporters, as captured by Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman:
It’s KD. He’s humble. And Westbrook has been crazy good. But it was interesting Durant called RW “our best player” pic.twitter.com/3hw8xtihyi
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) November 5, 2015
“We had something in that pick-and-roll and we spaced the floor out a lot,” Durant said. “And we let our best player, Russell, we let him control the game. He had 16 assists, he was getting everybody shots, getting himself shots.”
While Westbrook certainly was dealing for much of the game, some pundits have long railed against this particular dynamic in the Oklahoma City ecosystem — that Durant, widely regarded as the smoothest and most natural scoring threat in the world before his MVP successor became somehow even more terrifying, can too often tend to defer in late-game situations to a teammate who, while no-doubt-about-it great, is not quite as great as he is. A look at the fourth-quarter stat line, combined with Durant’s postgame praise for his point guard, suggests the same tendency was at work on Wednesday.
For his part, though, Donovan saw something else at play in the fourth, according to ESPN.com’s Royce Young:
“[Toronto] did a very good job bringing backside help on Kevin, and sometimes you’ve got to pass the basketball,” Donovan said. “With the players we have on our team, I don’t think you want to shoot out of double-teams. It’s the quality of shots you get. It’s not always going to be Kevin. I thought Kevin played the right way and did a good job, but we certainly need to find ways to keep him involved and do some things to continually get him shots, but when they do bring two people to him he’s a willing passer.
“And I think that’s a good thing for our team, instead of him feeling this load. Because the other question would be, ‘Geez, Kevin went 0-for-6 down the stretch, and he had two guys hanging on him. Are those shots you want him taking?’ So it’s a catch-22.”
As all parties involved continue to search for solutions to the problem of late-game offensive slowdown, it’s worth noting that Durant’s conscious of needing to step forward in those situations, according to Slater of The Oklahoman:
Durant only took two shots in the fourth quarter and looked a bit passive at times. He talked about it postgame: “I like that we’re not as predictable. But we still have to stick to what makes us the money. It’s on me to be more aggressive, demand the ball in the huddles. But also look for my teammates, as well. We’re still learning, still learning this offense, but that can’t be an excuse. We have to figure it out at some point.”
If this sounds like a pretty familiar refrain to you — and, in fact, a very close relative to the kind of complaint frequently leveled at Brooks during his tenure, which many viewed as precisely the sort of issue Donovan was imported to resolve — you’re not alone. Figuring out how to introduce more variety into the Oklahoma City attack, and how to keep it as fluid and potent in late-and-close situations as it is during the rest of the game, still stands as Donovan’s most important task in his first season on the Thunder bench.
The solution, though, must include continuing to give Westbrook the opportunity to thrive. As great as Durant’s been in his first five games back, averaging 29.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game on 49.5 percent shooting from the field, 41.2 percent from 3-point land and 90 percent from the foul line, Westbrook has been every ounce as productive — 28.6 points, 10.6 assists and seven rebounds per contest on 49.5/36.7/82.8 shooting splits. He and Durant are not the same type of player, to be sure, but that does not mean Westbrook is less important or less valuable a creative and cohesive force. Russell Westbrook is this good, and is the most compelling reason for Durant to remain in Oklahoma City after this season. (Well, that and the extra money. The sweet, sweet extra money.)
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The truth is, the “best player” on the Oklahoma City Thunder is a title that could very well shift from night to night, depending on matchups, rhythm and circumstance. That’s the nice thing about having two future Hall of Famers in their respective primes, and it’s why Donovan, Durant and the rest of the Thunder don’t seem especially concerned about having dropped two straight in early November, even as they head into a Thursday night prime-time matchup with the Chicago Bulls.
“It’s all correctable stuff,” Durant said Wednesday, according to Erik Horne of The Oklahoman. “We’re not worried at all. It’s not like we can’t get a grip on what’s going on.”
Especially when you’ve got two sets of MVP-caliber hands on deck to steer the ship back on course.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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