Russell Westbrook has been in the eye of the storm over the last week. Since his arrival in Los Angeles, Westbrook has not played well. As a result, a nickname that has been around for years re-emerged during this time; Westbrick. Westbrook’s poor shooting has become grounds for a nickname being thrown at him.
But Russell Westbrook does not appreciate these comments. This past week, Westbrook mentioned that he would not allow people to call him Westbrick anymore, as it was an insult to his family name and legacy. But him coming out and making that statement only made things worse.
NBA fans flooded his last Instagram post with comments of ‘Westbrick’ and the brick emoji. And one heckling fan even yelled ‘Westbrick’ toward Russ at a game, prompting him to tell the fan to not disrespect his name. These comments have clearly not gone down well with the NBA community.
One NBA analyst thinks Westbrook has been massively hypocritical about this situation.
Kevin O’Connor spoke on ‘The Mismatch’ podcast about the Westbrook situation. He mentioned that Westbrook is complaining, while he also had cupcakes at his parties to mock Kevin Durant, as the cupcake name was thrown at him in the aftermath of his departure from the Oklahoma City Thunder (1:02:00 onwards).
“This is the same guy that has cupcakes at his 4th of July party, playing into the Kevin Durant cupcake nickname. What a f*cking hypocrite.”
There may be some truth to what O’Connor is saying. But there is a belief that Westbrook is against the nickname more so because of the impact it is having on his family and his kids. But O’Connor also had a problem with Russ mentioning his Kids in the narrative, noting that he didn’t feel it was necessary.
Westbrook recently revealed that he no longer wants to bring his family to home games because he’s worried that they will hear something said about their father. Tensions are running high currently, and the debate over Russ’ reaction to the nickname and heckling will probably continue as times on.
