Westbrook’s frenetic style had been honed and developed in large part by his father, an intense, career pickup baller, who would shepherd his son around town to gyms and parks to shoot jumpers and run him through drills he invented.
“They would do military drills,” says Jordan Hamilton, a fellow Compton native and former first-round draft pick. “It was all work-ethic stuff.”
He had the boy do pushups, situps, endless sprints and agility drills in sandboxes. He hammered home the idea that he had to work for everything he was ever going to get.
“Outwork them,” his father would say. “Outwork them all.”
Plus, Westbrook wasn’t just small, he was slight. If he turned sideways, he’d disappear. He was invisible to most anyway.
He was easy to overlook. Easy to doubt. Easy to dismiss. His father taught him to use that pain and frustration. To hate the way it felt. To never be denied. He began to shape his mind as much as his game. It took the two of them to lift the boulder-sized chip and place it squarely on Russell’s skinny shoulders.
you danced like a clown, and still managed to lose to the Mavs
Why is dude so angry all the time
