Russell Westbrook retires after illustrious 18-year career

One of the game’s greatest point guards has left the game. 

Russell Westbrook, 37, announced his retirement on Wednesday after 18 NBA seasons. 

In 2008, the UCLA standout - 2007-08 All Pac-12 and defensive player of the year - was drafted fourth overall by the Seattle SuperSonics in the NBA Draft. He and Serge Ibaka, drafted 24th that same year, were the last ever first-round draft picks by the Sonics’ franchise before the franchise moved to Oklahoma City, where they began play in 2008-09 as the Thunder.

Westbrook averaged 15.3 points, 5.3 assists, and 4.9 rebounds per game as a rookie, finishing fourth in Rookie of the Year voting. By his third season, he was an All-NBA performer, for which he made 3rd team in each of the next two seasons. In the 2011-12 season, a trio of sensational young stars Westbrook, Kevin Durant, and James Harden led the Thunder to a 47-19 record in the lockout-shortened season. In the Western Conference Finals, the Thunder defeated the San Antonio Spurs in six games - winning the last four of the series. The Thunder met the equally talented Miami Heat - LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh - in the NBA Finals, and despite winning Game 1 by a 105-94 score, they lost four straight. In the series, Westbrook, 23 years old, posted 27.0 points, 6.6 assists, and 6.4 rebounds per game. Westbrook, in Game 4, made 20-of-32 shots from the field and scored 43 points.

After Harden was traded in October of 2012 to the Houston Rockets and Durant left for the Golden State Warriors in 2016, Westbrook officially took the wheel in Oklahoma City. It was his team, and he fast established himself as one of the game’s great players.

From 2014-19, Westbrook was a Thunder all-star, blossoming into a superstar by becoming the first player since Oscar Robertson (1961-62) to average a triple-double in a season - 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, 10.4 assists in 2016-17. For his effort, Westbrook was named the NBA’s MVP. He also averaged a triple-double for the next two seasons (2017-18, 2018-19) and again in the 2020-21 season with the Washington Wizards. In 2015-16 and 2016-17, Westbrook was an All-NBA 1st team member. As a Rocket in 2019-20, he averaged 27.2 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 7.0 assists per game, and made All-NBA 3rd team. With the Wizards the following season, he posted averages of 22.2 points, 11.7 assists, and 11.5 rebounds per game, the 11.7 assists allowing him to secure his third and last assist title of his career (10.3 in 2017-18, 10.7 in 2018-19). 

After one season with the Los Angeles Lakers (18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds, 7.1 assists in 2021-22), Westbrook played 52 games with the team in the 2022-23 season before a trade to the Utah Jazz, who bought out his contract. Westbrook signed with the Clippers, and with the team in 2022-23, he averaged 15.8 points, 7.6 assists, and 4.9 rebounds, and performed admirably in the post-season against the Phoenix Suns after Kawhi Leonard was injured in Game 1, posting games of 28 points, 30 points, 12 assists, and 8 rebounds, and 37 points. 

In Westbrook’s final three seasons, he assumed a bench role (68 games with the Clippers, 75 games with the Denver Nuggets, and 64 with the Sacramento Kings), playing 22.5, 27.9, and 29.0 minutes per game, but was still an effective player giving his teams a punch and somebody who could push the pace for the bench unit.

Westbrook finishes his career with averages of 20.9 points, 8.0 assists, and 6.9 rebounds in 33.1 minutes per game in 1,301 career games. He was a career 43.8% field-goal shooter, and particularly was a capable midrange shooter earlier in his career. 

In 821 career games with the Thunder (34.5 minutes per game), he averaged 23.0 points, 8.4 assists, and 7.0 rebounds per game. He is 14th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list (27,176), fifth all-time in assists (10,351), and is the league’s all-time triple-doubles leader (209). On April 2, 2019 against the Los Angeles Lakers, Westbrook posted 20 points, 20 rebounds, and 21 assists. Four times in his career, he registered a game of 20 or more rebounds, and eight times he registered a game of 20 or more assists. Westbrook and James are the only players in NBA history to have amassed 25,000 points and 10,000 assists for a career.

Former sportswriter Lyle Spencer, who graduated from UCLA in 1971 and went on to a long career that included a decade at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and five years at the New York Post, followed Westbrook’s career since he himself was at UCLA. Spencer says that while Westbrook was not properly utilized as a Bruin - he played the two-guard while future NBAer Darren Collison played the point - his career trajectory skyrocketed once he entered the pros.

“His NBA career was brilliant once he settled in as a point guard, with few equals in history,” Spencer tells me, while also pointing out the complicated dynamic that is Westbrook’s greatness as a player with his often seen and heard ridicule from fans.

“His personality and integrity made him unpopular with national media and casual fans accepted their ridicule as fact and truth when it was neither,” says Spencer. “He had one of the most spectacular runs ever in history but the media hate persisted and it was largely ignored.”

Spencer goes on to say that the social media crowd found it easy to bash and criticize Westbrook, to, which looking back on his career and what he accomplished, was to a grossly unfair extent.

“Russell Westbrook is the most unjustly ridiculed NBA player in history because he refused to play their game,” says Spencer.

Spencer is spot on in the ridicule that Westbrook encountered. There may have never been a player who accomplished so much on the floor to be so criticized for his production, called a stat-padder and non-winner when the reality is that every player to their core has the goal of padding their numbers. After all, that is how you get paid in pro sports. People also knock Westbrook for being a non-winner. To that criticism, consider the fact that the Lakers, Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs, and Chicago Bulls between them have 46 NBA championships. Not everybody wins.

Westbrook’s legacy, in an era that overlapped with James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, James Harden, and Leonard, will be as one of the most complete point guards to ever play - maybe the best scoring point guard ever - along with the position’s most athletic and explosive specimen. Westbrook gets a lot of flack from mentally inept fans, but there is no debating his impact on the game, the player that he was, and the joy that he was to watch. He brought a rarely seen passion and energy to the game that is slowly disappearing from the game.