Russell Westbrook retires: His NBA legacy after 18 electric seasons

Aug 12, 2026, 06:31 PM ET

Russell Westbrook is stepping away from the NBA.

The 2017 Most Valuable Player, nine-time All-NBA selection, two-time scoring champion and 2012 Olympic gold medalist announced Wednesday that he is retiring after a Hall of Fame career that spanned 18 seasons and seven teams and boasts the most triple-doubles (209) in league history.

Where does Westbrook rank among the all-time greats? What are the top moments from a legendary yet polarizing career? ESPN NBA insiders Ben Golliver, Zach Kram, Anthony Slater, André Snellings and Ohm Youngmisuk examine Russ' explosive and relentless style, his partnership with Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder and whether Westbrook's single-season triple-double record will ever fall.

What is Westbrook's lasting NBA legacy?

Westbrook's NBA legacy is best summed up by a 2016 sneaker commercial that included the famous lyrics, "Now I do what I want." The spot was released just months after Kevin Durant's 2016 departure from the Thunder, which left Westbrook as the team's lone remaining superstar.

Westbrook was a fearless and unbelievably self-confident player, and he immediately embraced the new opportunities that came with Durant's franchise-changing exit.

The next season, Westbrook averaged a league-leading 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists -- becoming the first player since Oscar Robertson in 1962 to average a triple-double across an entire season. The do-everything guard also won 2017 MVP honors by leading the Durant-less Thunder to 47 wins and a playoff appearance.

While Westbrook's uncompromising personality and frenetic energy helped him register a record 209 triple-doubles in his career, his fierce desire to play his preferred style led to some friction with coaches, media members and fans later in his career, and he retired Wednesday without a championship ring.

Still, Westbrook will be remembered as an iconic figure who stuffed the stat sheet, set fashion trends and never backed down from confrontation. On and off the court, he did exactly what he wanted for 18 seasons. -- Golliver

Westbrook was on the NBA's 75th anniversary team. Where would you rank him on that list?

Ranking Westbrook requires a balance between individual accomplishments and team success.

Westbrook is one of 37 players in NBA history to win an MVP award, and he's tied for 27th place -- with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Garnett and Gary Payton -- with nine All-NBA nods. He ranks 16th in career points and fifth in career assists; he and LeBron James are the only members of the 25,000-point, 10,000-assist club.

Yet Westbrook never won a championship and never returned to the Finals after making an early run as a 23-year-old in 2012. He and Kevin Durant lost in the 2011, 2014 and 2016 conference finals -- but unlike Durant, who went on to win two Finals MVP awards with the Golden State Warriors, Westbrook never reached the conference finals after that duo split. Similarly, Antetokounmpo, Garnett and Payton all won championships, so it's fair to bump them ahead of Westbrook in this hypothetical ranking.

To that end, it's difficult to move Westbrook much higher up the list since 2022 based on his performance over his final four seasons, when he served as a role player for four different teams (Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings) and won only a single playoff series (for Denver in 2025). And in the meantime, other players who weren't on the 75th anniversary team -- most notably Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander -- have surely passed Westbrook on the all-time list.

I'd still rank Westbrook somewhere in the 60s overall. Given that stathead lists 5,105 NBA players in its database, that places Westbrook among the top 1.5% of players in league history. -- Kram

Will anyone ever break Westbrook's single-season triple-double record?

Westbrook's 42 triple-doubles in 2016-17 broke the 55-year-old record of 41 set by Oscar Robertson in 1961-62, but I'm skeptical Westbrook will hold the record for nearly as long. Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic notched 34 triple-doubles in 70 games during the 2024-25 season, then followed that up with another 34 in only 65 games last season. (Jokic's 2025-26 was on-pace for 43 triple-doubles if he had played all 82 games.)

With Jokic, 31, still in his prime and increasing his triple-double rate every season, he has a good chance at Westbrook's record in the next few seasons. But if Jokic doesn't, it could be awhile before we see another player capable of notching triple-doubles at that level. -- Snellings

How would you sum up Westbrook and Durant's Thunder teams?

Dynamic, yet unfulfilled.

The combination of Westbrook and Durant was supposed to be the future of the NBA for a long time. It was a generational blend of Russ' explosiveness and triple-double-suited game with Durant's smooth and elite scoring skill set in a 7-foot package. With James Harden as sixth man extraordinaire, the Thunder looked like the next great franchise after reaching the Finals and losing in five games to LeBron James and the Heat.

But they never got back. Harden became a starter and superstar in Houston. And Westbrook and Durant were two alphas; coexisting was complicated at times. Ultimately their time came to an end after a Western Conference finals trip in 2016 ended with a Game 7 loss to nemesis Golden State, resulting in Durant leaving for the Warriors the next season. Westbrook and Durant made it to the West finals four times, but it's still hard to believe they reached just one Finals.

Off the court, it was unique. Westbrook's legacy will be his 209 triple-doubles. But he was as multifaceted off the court with his fashion. Westbrook turned the entrance hallway to Oklahoma City's arena into a fashion runway with his head-turning outfits -- a tradition Gilgeous-Alexander continues today. Westbrook was the NBA's undisputed fashion king during his prime and told ESPN he sometimes even sewed his own outfits. He famously wore a photographer's vest to troll Durant when the Thunder visited Golden State in 2016. Westbrook said he kept some of his favorite pieces -- his Met Gala outfits, his wedding and draft night suits among them. What about the photographer vest?

"It's somewhere," Westbrook told ESPN. "Yeah, I got it. I [still] got that." -- Youngmisuk

What is your favorite memory of Westbrook during your time covering the Thunder?

I'll give you two answers. The first is smaller scale. I remember a road game in Portland in 2015, during which he was kneed in the face, broke a bone and had a dent in his cheek. He finished the game, had surgery the next day and -- it was presumed -- he'd miss an indefinite amount of time.

He only ended up missing two games, returned five days later with a protective mask and threw down one of the most ferocious dunks in traffic I'd ever seen, showing zero concern about his broken face. He had 49 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists that night, showing his incomparable toughness and fearlessness at the peak of his powers.

Larger scale: My last assignment at The Oklahoman before I moved to the Bay Area to cover the Durant-era Warriors was a blue carpet news conference in downtown OKC celebrating Westbrook's extension.

After Durant departed, the city was in shock and there was a brief time when the expectation was that Westbrook would desert them next -- and quickly. His extension choice landed like a pledge to the city, and he spent the next season on a full-out MVP revenge tour, lifting the spirits of that organization in the process.

That lured Paul George and eventually set the table for general manager Sam Presti's wave of trades that set up their current contention run.

Westbrook is still viewed as a Thunder legend and is given standing ovations every time he returns. -- Slater

Reporting from ESPN contributed to this story.