Russell Westbrook’s extended free agency is finally, mercifully over.
With less than a week to go before the 2025-26 regular season tips off, the Sacramento Kings agreed on a one-year, veteran minimum deal with the future Hall of Famer, per ESPN’s Shams Charania.
The only real question this answers is which team will Westbrook play for this season. A handful of other questions persist.
- Why did it take so long for Westbrook to be signed in the first place?
- Does he fit with the Kings? What’s his role there?
- And considering this is his sixth team since leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder (a stretch that’s approaching its seventh year), what does this mean for his legacy?
The answer to the first most pressing question, is layered.
When Westbrook declined his player option with the Denver Nuggets for 2025-26, he must’ve assumed there’d be a bit more interest in him this summer.
He and his representation may have misread the evolution of the league and his place in it.
Over the last several years, it has become increasingly important for NBA players to be able to hit jump shots. Those who can’t are easily ignored by defenses that can then devote more energy and resources to the rest of a lineup.
Westbrook’s gotten the treatment for a while now.
So, while he had a traditionally productive campaign for the Nuggets in 2024-25, when he averaged 13.3 points and 6.1 assists in 27.9 minutes and finished seventh in Sixth Man of the Year voting, they had no interest in bringing him back.
Denver was plus-0.1 points per 100 possessions with Russ on the floor, but it was plus-8.4 without him.
The swing was, at least in part, a product of the lack of attention Westbrook commanded as a shooter (as well as the fact that that doesn’t really deter him from shooting). And it’s certainly not a new development.
In the playoffs, when defenses more aggressively scheme for weaknesses, Westbrook’s negative impact has persisted for years and through a variety of situations.
Since the start of the 2017-18 campaign (a timeframe that stretches back into his OKC days), Westbrook has played 1,499 postseason minutes. His teams were minus-9.6 points per 100 possessions during those minutes (compared to plus-1.1 when he was off the floor).
Russ is one of the hardest-playing, highlight-generating, stat-stuffing players in NBA history, but his aggression often leads to chaos. That can be good in small doses.
But with Westbrook, it can mean turnovers, bad shots, bad fouls and inattentiveness on defense.
If all that showed up with LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, and in Denver with Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray, it’s hard to imagine things suddenly smoothing out in Sacramento.
Two of the Kings’ three highest-paid players, Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan, don’t command attention as outside shooters. Their new point guard, Dennis Schröder, doesn’t really either.
When Westbrook is on the floor with two or three of the above, the floor-spacing responsibility for Zach LaVine and/or Malik Monk will simply be too great.
Westbrook is now, at least, the fifth King who sometimes needs to dominate the ball to be effective, and it’s hard to imagine how this pairing can work.
If Westbrook starts, the floor could feel painfully cramped. If he’s coming off the bench, he may be able to put up some gaudy traditional numbers, but Sacramento’s second unit has too much unproven talent around him.
The ceiling for the Kings, regardless of Westbrook’s role, is probably a play-in exit. That’s what it was before he joined.
If they end up there, this will have been the sixth conseecutive stop marred by failure, an early end to the campaign or some combination of both.
And that makes it tempting to remember Westbrook as a journeyman or a cancer on several teams with title aspirations.
Plenty of legendary NBA careers closed in less-than-stellar fashion. Kobe Bryant shot 36.4 percent from the field in his last two seasons. Allen Iverson wore a Memphis Grizzlies jersey. Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon repped the Orlando Magic and Toronto Raptors, respectively.
The list could go on and on.
The decline years may have lasted a bit longer for Westbrook than they did for others, but he should always be known for his time with the Thunder, averaging a triple-double over the course of five years and the competitive spirit he played with at every stop.
If he suddenly finds a more consistent jump shot, plays consistent defense and leads the Kings to a better-than-expected finish in 2025-26, great. If not, Russ is (and will still be) one of the 50(ish) best players in NBA history.
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