Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are both NBA legends and first-ballot Hall-of-Famers. While they are now on separate teams, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were once both members of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and they even got to the Finals together. However, the duo was unable to win a championship together.
Kendrick Perkins played on the Oklahoma City Thunder at the same time as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. He recently explained why the star duo never ended up clicking, claiming that “their continuity wasn’t there”, also stating that “their brotherhood, it never really was a brotherhood”. (5:05):
Their continuity wasn’t there. No matter how much they tried to fake it to the public, their brotherhood, it never was a brotherhood. And that’s okay, right, because you don’t have to be somebody’s brother to go out there and win a championship. But it helps. They never just got on the same page.
It was the most difficult situation that I’ve ever been in coming from a Celtics team that was so close. When I got to the Oklahoma City Thunder, it was so separated. You had Eric Maynor, Russell Westbrook and James Harden…and Daequan Cook. They had their little clique and they kicked it with each other. Then you had KD who as just by himself. He didn’t even hang with them.
Team chemistry is important when it comes to winning a championship. If Kendrick Perkins is correct and the two weren’t really close, perhaps that contributed to them not being able to win. With that being said, Kevin Durant has defended Russell Westbrook from criticism on multiple occasions in the past, so it’s clear that there’s still respect from him towards Westbrook.
It is definitely unfortunate that those Oklahoma City Thunder teams never managed to win a title. Perhaps one day we will see Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook reunite, and it would certainly be interesting to see how far they could go.
