April 18, 2023
It didn’t look right, Russ guarding KD on Saturday night.
It still feels like KD never should have left, that he and Russ should be up in OKC, wearing a couple rings, working with SGA and Chet for the next couple, squaring off with the Warriors and Lakers, every year.
Instead, we had 0 guarding 35 on Saturday night.
And it didn’t look right.
We dealt with it when and as it happened, and each guy represented, big-time, in one another’s absence. Westbrook was dominant on both ends, averaging 3 consecutive triple doubles and scooping up an MVP trophy in an era packed with individual superstars.
KD got his rings, his championship MVPs, and earned the story line that he was the best player on that loaded Warrior team.
It looked good as it happened, even great.
But neither guy is fulfilled. We know it ‘cuz they show it.
Russ plays like a guy that still has something to prove, it’s why we love him. It’s also why we hate him: he can’t seem to pass up a fight, with a fan, or his gone jump shot, and it’s not aging well. He can still contribute and hoop, but even in victory Sunday with a 10-9-8 stat line, he shot a brick-diciulous and un-humble 3-19.
KD played great in Brooklyn, and has been really good in Phoenix. He’s shown resilience and toughness. Coaches have piled on minutes – he led the Suns with 43 against the Clips – and he just keeps making tough shots, breaking down defenses, getting boards. He doesn’t complain, he goes to work. He has his rings, and a place in history.
But he still burns just like Russ does. He agitated over the summer, demanding a trade, waffled, then hit the “Switch” button, after never really playing with a fully-settled Net team.
The Warriors rings look smaller in hindsight. They won last year with Andrew Wiggins replacing KD.
Wiggins is a nice 2 way player. He’s not transformational. KD knows this, he does not need Draymond to shout it at him.
Year-by-Year, game-by-game, we got used to it. Russ got his trip-dubs. KD got his rings. But when we step back, it looks weird. Not just to us. To them.
KD’s plan to cement his legacy, realistic enough to recognize he needed another superstar, egoistic enough to recognize he’d never get that cement on Steph’s team, was a good one: partner with another wandering, misunderstood soul. Join a rising team in a big market with a good vibe. Have a management relationship to influence the team constitution and direction for his game and goals.
Queue best-laid-plans euphemisms. KD’s master plan could not have collapsed more spectacularly, making a dumpster fire look like controlled demolition. Player decisions to oust Kenny Atkinson, bring in a washed Derek Jordan, trade the house for Harden, and keep veteran shooters that can’t shoot any more all worked just as bad as they possibly could have.
Partnering with the enigmatic Kyrie felt special at first. I don’t think it felt special after playing 45 minutes as the lone superstar on the court, night after night, while the Enigma behaved Enigmatically.
Russ, God bless him, had no other plan than to win a championship in OKC, and after they threw him out, to prove himself all over again.
He shouldn’t have to.
Neither of them should have to prove themselves, all over again.
But as much as we tell them that, and they tell themselves that, they are going to keep trying to write the impossible narrative that undoes the great mistake of KD leaving OKC without a championship.
As time goes by, that needle gets harder and harder to thread; KD is on another all-star packed team, and Russ has been the 3rd – 8th best player on his team, from game-to-game, for the last few years, often a stubborn shooting liability.
The path to fulfillment for each is precarious, and Vegas would give them mixed odds.
We cannot predict the future, and while we’ll never diss Russ and KD by dismissing them, here’s what we know: these guys will keep trying, and hooping, and fighting for their legacies.
And it’ll never look quite right.
