Russell Westbrook Getting Knee Surgery: Big Deal Or Little Deal?

So this news just dropped and it caught me a little off guard. Seeing as how I’m on the Summer Workout SZN beat, I’ve seen countless videos of Westbrook this summer and honestly he looked the exact same to me. Not exactly like a guy who had a fucked up knee. That’s why when I saw this news come out, I wasn’t overly concerned. That’s why I’m telling any OKC fan out there who may be a little shook, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. So he’ll be out for a while and will miss the entire preseason, big deal. Do we think Westbrook needs the preseason? The only major change to the OKC roster is that Melo is gone, so it’s not like he needs to play for chemistry purposes or anything like that. Obviously the Thunder are being proactive as opposed to reactive and are taking care of this now. That’s what I would want as a Thunder fan.

But that’s the optimistic look at this whole situation. I don’t care what the teams says, as someone who just had to live through their point guard having “knee procedures” that were “maintenance”, it’s not always butterflies and rainbows. When a guy is 30 years old and relies so heavily on his athleticism, things like this can add up and is certainly not something you can just outright ignore. Any time you hear the words “surgery” and “knee” that obviously is a big deal, even if it’s just a clean up. It’s not like he tore anything or a previous surgery didn’t take, but you just never know what the future has in store when you start cutting into guys’ knees.

I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but let’s say Westbrook does end up missing a little bit of time come the regular season. Now last year that would have been a big time problem because it would have meant way too many minutes for Raymond Felton who surprisingly is still in the league. This year, at least they have Dennis Schroder on the roster who despite his own limitations has shown to be a starter caliber player while in Atlanta. That definitely softens the potential blow a little bit, and at don’t forget they do have Paul George too and aren’t just stuck with Melo. Also getting Andre Roberson back will help as well, people forget he even exists.

Having said that, with the West being so damn competitive, the Thunder can’t really sustain being without Westbrook for too long. OKC fans will be quick to remind you they won 59 games back in 2013-14 when Westbrook played just 46 games, but it’s a different conference this time around in my opinion. As a general basketball and NBA fan I’m hoping this truly is nothing to worry about, because when Westbrook is healthy and going his usual 100 MPH, he’s one of the most exciting players the league has.