Both infuriating and unstoppable, Westbrook is always fun to watch.

You cannot write intelligently about Oklahoma City Guard Russell Westbrook during the season. It is impossible. On any given night, Westbrook could play like the dunking second-coming of Basketball Jesus, hitting shot after shot while screaming and glaring into the crowd and pounding his chest like a man possessed who has the entire NBA at his merciless fingertips. Yet just when you surely believe that Revelation time has come, and that basketball rapture is upon us all, Russ clanks four consecutive pull-up jumpers instead of JUST PASSING IT TO KEVIN DURANT, THE MVP OF THE LEAGUE AND THE BEST SCORING FORWARD TO HAVE EVER BREATHED OXYGEN as you throw your remote through your plasma screen television and maybe cry a little on your couch.

Westbrook is vastly improved, wildly fun to watch, and still plays the bi-polar brand of basketball he has both been repeatedly praised and lambasted for over the course of the last four years. He is simultaneously the great thorn in the side of the NBA’s greatest scorer and a tremendous reason the Thunder have experienced such great success over the course of the last several seasons. He is, perhaps, the most underappreciated player in the league.             

 What makes Westbrook so maddeningly difficult to comprehend and appreciate is his tendency to play like a genius and a doofus at the same time. He is at once the frosted wonderful middle of the Pop-Tart while still being the unfrosted and terrible outer edges. The total body of work comes together to make a delicious pastry, but there are still unlikable parts about it. Westbrook shot upwards of 41% from the field over the course of the last four seasons, ranked among the league leaders in assists, steals, and rebounds at his position. However, he also takes terrible shots at times, turns the ball over far too often, and occasionally costs the Thunder a win or two by making a bone-headed play at the end of the game. Westbrook puts up elite numbers, and, unfortunately, popularity in the sporting world is not as much based on numbers as it is on public perception.              

Perception, more than numbers or hard facts or anything else, shapes the way the basketball world views Russell Westbrook. Many basketball snobs and even common fans dislike Westbrook because he does not fit cleanly into any one position category. He has no real position on the floor. A player really unlike any other in the league, he passes and runs the team like a point-guard, scores and thinks like a shooting guard, and can defend either position equally well. Westbrook is an elite point guard and an elite shooting guard, which incidentally makes him neither. An elephant seal with eagle wings is not an elephant eagle; it is neither, it is imaginary. A point guard who shoots 20 times per game and defends both positions is not a point guard or a shooting guard; he is neither, he is Russell Westbrook. Westbrook’s on-court demeanor, however, is his premier perception problem. His playing style makes him a polarizing figure. Westbrook plays basketball the way Meek Mill raps, the way Samuel L. Jackson acts, the way my mom reacts when she realizes that I still think 69 jokes are funny—a combination of an unabashed sense of anger and screaming, a sense of disgust for everything around him, a willingness to overcome and destroy anything that stands in his way. Screaming dunks and tough finishes around the rim and ferocious rebounds, Westbrook plays furious basketball. He plays with a certain edge and derived anger that appears to be deeper than basketball, and seemingly with an attitude that he, Russell Westbrook, is the greatest human to have ever lived and that everyone else just aimlessly exists in his world. He is better than you, and he knows it. Russell Westbrook plays basketball the way most women watch the bachelor.             

That style of basketball is not for everyone. That style of living is not for everyone. I believe it is largely generational. My dad hates Samuel L. Jackson and probably does not care much for Meek Mill. They appeal to me. We belong to different generations. My dad does not care much for Westbrook’s fire and passion and sometimes-whiny nature. Those qualities are exactly what I like about him—his willingness to compete all the time, his willingness to scream into any crowd, his fearless style of play. We belong to different generations. My dad’s superstars were Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. They were straight-laced. They did not whine, they did not scream, they did not try to tear the rim down every time they played. My superstars are Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and LeBron James. They scream and wear flashy shoes. They curse and dunk all the time. Some fans—very generally, older generations—do not appreciate Westbrook’s style of play the same way other fans do, and that is ok. It is expected. However, what everyone should appreciate is the ultimate outcome, the results that style of play has produced: Russell Westbrook, a four-time all star who as not even reached his prime. Trust numbers and results, not images and sound bites.             

In a sane world, Russell Westbrook would be heralded as an elite player, a perennial all-star, and beloved. In the real world, or at least Oklahoma City, he is seen as an immature superstar, a part-time king, part-time jester, and round-the-clock talking piece. In victory, he is praised. In defeat, he is lampooned. Hardly ever is Westbrook accepted for what he is—a tremendous talent and should-be cornerstone of a future championship franchise.