Russell Westbrook Sends Weak-Ass Layup into Orbit

To this point, the Russell Westbrook Revenge Tour has gone more or less as predicted. He's averaging 31 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds, with a fully revved motor and an astronomically high usage rate. He's dropped a 50-point triple-double and powered a 20-0 run in which he scored or assisted on every bucket. The Oklahoma City Thunder have looked fine sometimes—wins against a few bottom-feeders and one over the Clippers—and shaky at others. They're not great, but Westbrook makes them a great watch.

Wednesday night's game against the Toronto Raptors was representative. Westbrook went for 36, seven, and seven, but the competent Raptors won by ten. All the hallmarks of a liberated Russ outing were there: the human-cannonball drives and atmosphere-singeing crosscourt passes, the stretches where his jumpers hit the front of the rim and his dishes landed in courtside seats. We've seen all that before. We expected it coming into the season.

Early in the fourth quarter, though, Westbrook did something different. Toronto's Cory Joseph, carefree as Red Riding Hood, came off a screen, drove the lane, and lifted a layup. Russ appeared, in that way he has—somehow both surprising and inevitable, like the moment the wrecking ball finally meets the face of the building—leaped, and swatted Joseph's timid little finger-roll clear off the damn court. It was glorious.

Westbrook hasn't been much of a shot blocker over his career, averaging just 0.3 a game, and he has only four this season. He has, though, started to give his few rejections the dramatic flair that defines the rest of his game. Back on November 3, in Oklahoma City's first meeting with Kevin Durant and Golden State, Westbrook snuck up behind his ex-teammate and snuffed his floater. The Warriors went on to wallop the Thunder, but the block was one of the evening's more memorable plays, a declaration of intention and fearlessness, a non-verbal We're coming for you to the presumed conference champs and their fresh import.

Doesn't get better than this https://t.co/x2EJDjhQ9X
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) November 4, 2016

For this season, at least, Westbrook and Oklahoma City's accomplishments will likely be more symbolic than anything. On their way to a middle playoff seed, the team might knock off the Warriors a time or two, and its star will surely fill up any number of jaw-slackening box scores. The Thunder won't break through the ceiling imposed by Durant's departure, but they'll pound at it all year long. Here's hoping that involves a few more instances of Westbrook rearing back and getting that shit out of here.