Russell Westbrook's Face
The Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) were widely expected to be the worst team in the league this season, but after five minutes they led the Oklahoma City Thunder (@okcthunder) 16-5. The Philadelphia crowd was going crazy.
“He scared!” the people behind me kept screaming.
This storm of negativity triggered one of those Russell Westbrook (@russwest44) moments when he seems to pop out of space-time. Off a Sixers turnover, Westbrook took the ball near half-court, charged toward the rim, drew a hard foul and still somehow exploded forward, twisting between two defenders, to toss in a layup from a steep angle. He stood there for a second after the whistle, berating the crowd. A courtside fan — a bespectacled white man in a bulging Allen Iverson jersey — screamed back at Westbrook and flipped him off with both hands.
Westbrook’s face, in happy moments, is smooth and boyish, with deep dimples and a classic beauty mark on his cheek; his facial hair grows in tiny sparse wisps that suggest an eighth grader who hasn’t yet learned how to shave. (Westbrook claims that he has never actually shaved.) But now his sweet face changed. The bright, round eyes narrowed and darkened; the lips twisted into a sneer. Westbrook, when he needs it, has weapons-grade powers of stinkface, and he unleashed their full nuclear payload on the fan. He pointed him out to the referees in disgusted disbelief. Security came to escort the man away. Westbrook was still shaking his head in fury as he stepped up to make the free throw, and on the next few possessions he seemed lit up by anger, driving and passing and scoring so relentlessly that the fans behind me stopped taunting him and grew quiet, then started complaining about the man in the Iverson jersey, asking why the hell he had thought it was a good idea to antagonize Westbrook in the first place. Animated by rage, Westbrook carried his team, and by halftime the score was tied. Westbrook walked off the floor cursing fiercely.
From “The Misunderstood Genius of Russell Westbrook” by Sam Anderson for New York Times; Photo by Solve Sundsbo (@solvesundsbostudio)
#russellwestbrook #thunder #wearethunder #oklahomacity #okc #philadelphia #philly #76ers #basketball #nba #tripledouble #defense #genius #writing #onwriting #sports #fans #alleniverson #story #stories #thestorybar
