Russell Westbrook recently commented about being nicknamed “Westbrick.” He expressed his discontent about being called that and some thought that will make people wary of trash-talking against Westbrook.
But in the Los Angeles Lakers’ fixture against the Minnesota Timberwolves, it was proved wrong. Throughout the game, Westbrook was the target of the majority of the trash talk initiated by the Timberwolves’ players.
At one instance during the game, Westbrook airballed a shot and obviously T-Wolves players used that opportunity to belittle Brodie. Patrick Beverley and Karl-Anthony Towns mocked the Lakers guard following a terrible airball.
Brodie addressed that matter in the postgame conference. He replied by saying he paid no attention to it since the players in the Timberwolves’ side haven’t done anything in the league to get his attention.
Following the incident, renowned NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith spoke in favor of Westbrook as he called out KAT and Beverley for their behavior in the fixture.
“He is clearly having an absolutely, positively miserable season; the worst season of his career. But to mock him like that, I was like, ‘Damn, that’s kind of classless y’all. Y’all can do better than that, especially when you’re Minnesota and you ain’t been doing anything for the better part of the last two decades. … It was a little excessive. A little bit unclassy, I might say.”
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As Smith said, Westbrook is clearly having unarguably the worst season of his NBA career. Nothing has been going in his favor this season.
But at the end of the day, trash talk is part of the game and most players engage into it often. Due to Westbrook having a terrible year, he has become a common target for most players of opposing teams. Moreover, with the season almost over, it is very hard to say that mindset changes about the Lakers guard.
