Was Russell Westbrook's potential season ending accident malicious?

The OKC Thunder were primed to challenge for the title this season, after losing to the Heat last year. Kevin Durant had recently stated that he was tired of being second best, and he wants nothing more than to wrest away the championship from the Miami Heat this season. In the regular season, the Thunder finished with the second best record in the league with 60-22, again second best to Miami Heat, who finished 66-16. Come playoff time however, and all bets are off and the Thunder were poised to make a deep run this postseason. Then Russell Westbrook tore his meniscus after a collision with the Rockets’ Patrick Beverly during game 2 of their first round series.

Said the offender, Beverley – “It’s an unfortunate situation. You hate to see a type of player like that go out with any injury like that. I don’t go out and try to injure anybody. I play at one speed — that’s fast. I crash offensive rebounds, and I was just trying to make a play on the ball before they called timeout. There was no intention at all to try to injure anybody. Anybody who knows me knows that’s not my type of game.”

After being injured, Westbrook banged the scorer’s table in frustration. Frustration at Beverly and at the fact that he was about to miss out on the coming games.

When you have ten bodies bouncing around like ping pong balls in a pinball machine, there is a lot of potential for collision and injuries. But these players have trained themselves to anticipate potentially harmful contact and adjust accordingly to avoid or minimise it. They only let down their guard when the whistle blows. But there is a brief window when players are advancing the ball beyond the halfcourt line to call a timeout, in that window the players walk loosely to the bench. They aren’t looking to make a play. They aren’t looking to get to a spot on the court; just to head to the bench for a breather. Sometimes teams take advantage of that fact -

“In the game of basketball, when the opponents think the other team is going to call timeout, the guy tries to go for the steal. That happens on so many occasions, not just in the last game, but it’s been happening for so many years in the league. It’s just an unfortunate situation.” - said Beverly. That has been happening and when it comes to Westbrook, a lot more has been happening after the whistle blows. Russell Westbrook has never let the stoppage of play stop him from plying his trade. Remember the block on Danny Green?

Coming from the blindside, during the halftime period, blocking a player who was taking a practice shot. Now if Green were to land on Westbrook’s ankle and hurt himself, would that be Westbrook’s fault? Totally. There is no excuse for him to be blocking Green at that point.

Speaking of no excuse or reason to, how about the block on the Nuggets mascot? If the Denver Nuggets mascot, Rocky, makes a halfcourt shot while aiming backwards, the fans get free Qdoba quesos. He almost made one when the Thunder were in town, but Westbrook goaltended the ball. “Russell made a lot of friends here tonight,” said Nuggets coach Karl of that play.

If Westbrook sees fit to continue play when nobody else is active, should he be mad at a collision which occurred almost during a play? It wasn’t a dirty play as such, at worst it was a questionable gamble for a steal, but who doesn’t do that? Now Beverly is facing a lot of backlash and condemnation for his action. “Get off it. And stay off until the playoffs are over,” said the Rockets’ trainer to Beverley about checking his Twitter account, which is exploding with hate tweets after he hurt Westbrook. There is a chance that Westbrook doesn’t return this season. Metta World Peace returned after 12 days when he tore his meniscus, but this case may be more severe.

“We’re not trying to rush him or bring him back ahead of schedule. We want to make sure he’s healthy and his knee is right.”- said Kevin Durant. If there is a silver lining at all in this accident, it’s that we can get to see Kevin Durant unfettered. Westbrook led the Thunder in shot attempts this season, and in his absence, Durant will have to carry a lot of the scoring load. If the Thunder are to make it to the finals, they need Durant to have some 40 point games. Regardless of how this season turns out for the Thunder, they should not end up blaming Beverly for an intentionally dirty play, because it wasn’t.