Russell Westbrook’s fierce mentality has earned him a lot of love and admiration around the association. Ever since he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Brodie showed that anger and desire give his all on the court every time he played. Now that he’s a veteran, things haven’t changed.
Kendrick Perkins saw firsthand how great Westbrook was from a very young age. One week after he met the point guard, the 2008 NBA champion talked with a former teammate to tell him that Russ was just like him mentality-wise.
KP recently revealed how he told Kevin Garnett that the young player had a big mentality similar to KG’s.
“It was a week in [with OKC], and KG called me and was like, ‘What’s up, big fella? How you feeling man? What [are] them youngins like?’” Perkins said. “I just remember telling him, I was like, ‘Man, Russell Westbrook is just a smaller version of you as far as his mentality,” Perkins said, via NBC Sports.
“You have those certain guys where you just walk into an arena and you have that comfort of knowing that we’re gonna win this game or we’re gonna have a chance of winning this game because of him,” Perkins said.”[Westbrook] gave us swagger. They have that old saying where, ‘If you see him in a fight with a bear, to help the bear.’ I changed it up with him where I was like, ‘Pour the honey on Russ because after he finish spanking up on that bear he’s gonna want other bears to come so he can whoop them too.’”
As Anthony Davis recently said, Garnett was a very fierce competitor. He left everything on the court when he played. Brodie doesn’t hold anything back, just like Garnett, and their impact on the game goes beyond the stats. Their energy, the intensity they bring to the game. You can’t teach that, and these two are masters at it.
