They were supposed to be together as different parts of a long dynasty. Instead they are twin stars separated by circumstance and clamoring for respect.
One comes at you with all the subtlety of a bass drum, while the other can slip into a room more quietly than a shadow.
While the Golden State Warriors are still slapping the LA Clippers back to reality and LeBron James is tweaking Phil Jackson and the New York Knicks with the water bottle challenge, the best duel in the NBA is between a pair of ex-teammates.
When Russell Westbrook and the Thunder meet James Harden’s Houston Rockets tonight in Oklahoma City (8 ET, ESPN), it’s not just a clash of lead dogs happy to be pulling the wagons, but all of the ego that could humanly be crammed into just two bodies.
Go by the numbers:
Westbrook is threatening the legendary Oscar Robertson’s feat of averaging a triple-double by cranking out 31 points,11.3 assists and 10.9 rebounds per game. Harden is a whisker behind at 28.5 ppg, a league-best 11.4 apg and 6.1 rpg. Westbrook is working on a string of consecutive triple-doubles, the longest in the NBA since the days of Michael Jordan. Harden, who has led the league in total points each of the past two seasons, has led his team in assists this season in all but one game.
The players are in many ways a study in contrasts, yet together they make for the most willful, look-at-me, unstoppable shows in the game. Both lived with, but chafed at, sharing the spotlight — Westbrook with Kevin Durant and Harden with Dwight Howard. Now they’re unbound and virtually uncontainable.
Harden is the hirsute Beard seemingly growing and going in a dozen different ways at once. The smooth-faced Westbrook is barreling in one direction — straight ahead.
Harden is a sly smile hiding behind those dark, shifting eyes as he finds another crack in the defense and slithers into the paint for another layup or slick pass to a teammate. Westbrook is a sneering, shouting sledgehammer hitting you right over the head with his tenacity.
It’s often that said that Westbrook, with those rippling muscles practically pushing through his skin, is the strongest guard in the league. But stand next to Harden or, better yet, try to slow him down on one of those locomotive rushes to the hoop and find out about sheer strength.
They are the faces of their respective franchises in virtually identical circumstances after arriving at that spot from opposite directions. After spending his first three NBA seasons in OKC and going to The Finals with Westbrook, Durant and the Thunder in 2012, Harden craved his own spotlight and wound up in Houston. Now after three unfulfilling seasons of playing alongside the moody Howard, he has been given the keys by new coach Mike D’Antoni and told to drive the team as far as he wants or can. Westbrook was left holding the mantle of leadership after Durant’s July 4 departure for Golden State and has ridden the opportunity like fireworks across the sky.
Based on their brilliance through the first quarter of the season, there is every reason to think that they will make up the starting backcourt for the Western Conference in the 2017 All-Star Game in New Orleans. Since the heyday of Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas nearly 30 years ago, only four times has the All-NBA first team backcourt been made up of a pair of point guards: John Stockton and Penny Hardaway in 1995, Jason Kidd and Gary Payton in 2000, Steve Nash and Allen Iverson in ’05 and Westbrook and Stephen Curry in ’16.
When they met for the first time this season three weeks ago, Westbrook rolled up 30 points, nine assists and seven rebounds to Harden’s 13 points, 13 assists and seven rebounds in a 105-103 Thunder win.
One of them chose to flee from the towering presence of Durant at the top of the marquee. The other was abandoned by Durant without so much as goodbye text message or tweet. As a result, both now carry chips on their shoulders for entirely different reasons and both have exactly what they always craved — the basketball and outcome of virtually every game in the palms of their hands.
However, they could also be prisoners of their own desires, getting the opportunity to shine individually without the real chance Durant has of grabbing a championship.
Westbrook has been put in charge of a young, green roster in OKC that is expected to grow up around him. Houston has surrounded Harden with enough complementary veteran parts to make him flourish.
Can either of them really expect to do the heavy solo act lifting of Atlas to carry the Rockets or Thunder all the way? Or will they be their generation’s version of Oscar and his Hall of Fame contemporary Jerry West, still chasing that lone NBA title into the twilight of their careers?
It’s all either one of them ever wanted. At last, their own spotlight. For a night, at least, the show to watch.
Fran Blinebury has covered the NBA since 1977. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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