Much has been made about the Russell Westbrook experience over the years with his journey around the NBA. The highs were very high as he won the MVP Award playing with the Thunder, but he was never able to bring OKC to the promised land and things have only gotten worse since departing.
In most of his stops since the Thunder, it has been the same story time and again. He shows up to a new home and endears himself to the fanbase with his competitiveness and skill, but ultimately wears out his welcome due to an inability to adapt his game in a way that will help the team in a playoff setting.
It happened with the Rockets, then it happened with the Lakers, and it happened again with the Clippers. Each franchise had high hopes, experienced some good moments with Russ, but finally realized that he was hurting the team, especially come playoff time.
Viral Russ meme coming to life
Eventually, a viral meme surfaced on the internet with Westbrook’s picture over a horizontal calendar that looks like a timeline. In the image, the timeline is broken down into multiple segments of the season with captions like “This is the best basketball player of all time” and conversely, “This is the worst basketball player of all time”.
There are a few different variations of the meme, but they all express the same general sentiment relating to Russ’ inconsistencies. And they all have one thing in common, a bleak image/caption under the portion of the calendar for April and beyond, AKA playoff season.
Most of us have seen this image, meant to satirize the ebbs and flows of the Russ Experience into easily digestible meme form.
— Silver Screen and Roll (@LakersSBN) January 9, 2022
But how accurate and/or predictive is it? @CooperHalpern dug into the Westbrook’s of past and present to try and see the future. https://t.co/lCFAKxZD3m pic.twitter.com/8t8GHQSayn
On a recent episode of the Kevin O’Connor Show, KOC and Tom Haberstroh discussed the Nuggets and referenced the infamous Westbrook meme, with O’Connor stating that’s exactly what’s playing out in real life in Denver.
Fans of just about every previous Westbrook stop tried to warn Nuggets’ fans. But Denver fans were stubborn and insisted things would be different this time around. They convinced themselves that Jokic could save him and find a way to make it work, that the team had the veteran infrastructure to handle Russ and had the perfect role for him to thrive without having to adjust his game.
And for the first few months, it worked to perfection. Russ brought everything that fans hoped to Denver and quickly showed many of the reasons he’s loved. But as the season has gone on, things have gotten worse, and since returning from injury they’ve been disastrous.
This can't continue in the playoffs or the Nuggets are doomed
We’re creeping closer to the playoffs and the part of the timeline where the meme goes off the rails, and sure enough, that’s what’s happening. Opponents have figured out the Nuggets and they’ve realized they can use Russ’ man as a roamer, daring him to shoot.
And Russ is happy to oblige, thus creating the problem. He can’t help but become a central part of the team’s offense, and that’s simply not a recipe for winning in the NBA in 2025. The Nuggets can’t play Russ if he’s going to dominate the ball and the shots this much, but if teams don’t guard him, there’s not much else he can do.
Therein lies the catch-22 situation that has plagued Russ and his teams in multiple stops. Other coaches came to see that the situation wasn’t tenable and more-or-less ended up benching him and eliminating him from the rotation.
Michael Malone and the Nuggets aren’t there yet. And with their lack of depth, they may never get there. But they are certainly at risk of a familiar trend playing out and dooming them in the playoffs.