Patrick Beverley never shies away from speaking his mind, so when he saw NBA World on X post some excellent defensive stats of his, he took the opportunity to call out his haters.
“They say I be running around.”
🤫 they say I be running around. @PatBevPod https://t.co/L10glgCl5H
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) November 26, 2023
Whatever you may think of Beverley and all of his antics, you can’t deny he is actually a pretty good defender. The stats shown there do back him up as well and he certainly isn’t someone who players relish going up against.
Beverley has not gotten significant minutes with the Philadelphia 76ers this season, however, as he is averaging just 16.3 minutes per game. As a result, he is only putting up 2.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 0.4 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game, but he is still managing to have an impact in his short time on the court.
The Origin Of This Narrative Surrounding Patrick Beverley
What is interesting of course, is that the one who had initially made that comment was his rival turned friend Russell Westbrook in 2019. After a game between the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Clippers, Westbrook was asked about the matchup between Beverley and James Harden, and he then delivered the now-famous line.
“Pat Bev trick y’all, man, like he playing defense,” Westbrook said. “He don’t guard nobody, man. He just running around, doing nothing.”
(starts at 1:38 mark):
Ever since Westbrook said it, Beverley’s defense hasn’t quite been held in the same breath as it once was. Considering the beef between these two back then, Westbrook’s comments should have been taken with a grain of salt.
Is Beverley one of the best defenders in the league? No, but he deserves respect for his prowess on that end of the floor. The 35-year-old has made the NBA All-Defensive Second Team twice (2014, 2020) and the Third Team once (2017).
Patrick Beverley And Russell Westbrook Squashed Their Beef
The Beverley-Westbrook beef began during the 2013 playoffs when Beverley delivered what many believed was a cheap shot on Westbrook. It led to Russ suffering a slight tear on his right meniscus and it kept it out for those playoffs.
The knee would also continue to bother him for years and it led to the two of them jawing at each other fairly often. One such incident was this one where Westbrook claimed Beverley just runs around on defense.
After going at each other for so many years, though, the two buried the hatchet during their time as teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers. In fact, they got so close that Beverley and Westbrook even had Christmas dinner together last year. The former now also backs the latter in public, with Beverley defending Westbrook after the Lakers traded him.
“To see how Russ is every game day, the first person in the locker room. Every single game. I’m on the first bus, LeBron is on the first bus too. There’s some vets in the league that take the third bus, we have 3 buses. I’m on first bus, ‘Bron on first bus, AD on first bus. We get to the locker room, Russ is there. Dressed, fully worked out already. Headphones on, locked in.”
“That’s my dawg. Lifetime dawg. Like, some real s**t… Lot of dinners just us together. We caught a real brother vibe. It was some real s**t, though. I didn’t know he knew the game of basketball the way he know the game. He know the game in and out. It’s a different perspective.”
Beverley also stated that Westbrook does not deserve the “Westbrick” nickname and has been very complimentary of him. If someone had told you that things would pan out like this after those comments in 2019, you’d have thought they were crazy.
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