Russell Westbrook Is Enjoying The Nikola Jokic School For Wayward Careers

In some ways, my worst nightmares about Russell Westbrook joining the Denver Nuggets have come true: He has wormed his way into the starting lineup; he has usurped the point guard position from Jamal Murray; he is shooting the ball quite often; he is shooting threes; Michael Malone loves him. And yet as all of this has happened, as Westbrook's role with the team has grown larger and more important, the Nuggets have gotten ... better? Just what the hell is going on here?

Things didn't start off so well. At the beginning of the season, Westbrook was ensconced in the second unit, and entrusted to keep the offense humming while Nikola Jokic sat on the bench. The non-Jokic minutes have always been a disaster for the Nuggets, but Westbrook was just making things worse. His early-season stints were full of the smoked layups, ill-advised jumpers, and reckless playmaking that came to define his seasons in Los Angeles and marked him as a candidate for ignominious retirement this past offseason. But then injuries started to bite the team, which shuffled Westbrook into the starting lineup, and from there the Nuggets just kind of stopped losing. The 23-15 Nuggets are 13-4 in games that Westbrook has started, and it's not by coincidence. As a starter, Westbrook is averaging 15 points, seven rebounds, and eight assists per game. He's also getting two steals per game, and shooting 53 percent from the field.

Westbrook has not accomplished this by transforming himself into a more deliberate, cautious, or precise player. He's still a crazy guy. What he quickly figured out this season, however, is that good things happen when you pass the ball to Nikola Jokic. It feels insane to type this, but the Westbrook–Jokic two-man game has, for now, supplanted the Murray–Jokic two-man game as the engine of Denver's offense. With Murray flitting in and out of injury spells and lethargic performances, it has fallen to Westbrook to be Jokic's buddy.

In a few specific ways, Westbrook is an even better cooperator with Jokic than Murray ever was. What immediately stands out whenever these two are on the court together is Westbrook's unwavering commitment to getting the ball into Jokic's hands in advantageous positions, something he excels at due to being a member of the last generation of NBA guards who know how to throw an entry pass. Westbrook snaps off crisp, accurate passes to Jokic from all sorts of angles—low bounces that evade shins and shoes to find Jokic's dipping hands, high-trajectory bullets that fit into windows where only Jokic can reach—and the big man has been feasting as a result. It's not an accident that Jokic is scoring a career-high 31 points per game.

Even the Westbrook–Jokic pick and roll, which should be a dud given Westbrook's lack of shooting ability, is oddly effective. When Jokic runs a two-man action with Murray, he tends to set the screen high up the floor, the goal being to spring Murray into space from where he can either step-back into an open three-pointer, burst towards the rim, or hit Jokic in the short roll with a pocket pass. When Jokic screens for Westbrook, however, he does so much lower, sometimes as far down as the free-throw line. Westbrook's defender almost always goes under this screen and shades toward Jokic, which puts one defender on his back and one just about in his lap. This is where the play is supposed to die: Westbrook has plenty of space to fire off a jumper, but it's useless to him because he can't really shoot. Jokic has decent enough post-up position, but he's got two defenders hovering around him to cut off an entry pass.

Westbrook and Jokic solve this problem through sheer stubbornness. Westbrook will just pass the ball to Jokic anyway, fitting an entry pass between two defenders that initiates a double team. Here is where it gets good: Westbrook, still equipped with most if not all of the burst he had when he was 25 years old, will cut hard toward the rim. Jokic will hit him with a perfect pass out of the double, and Westbrook will be at the hoop before the rotating defender can do anything about it.

Through this relatively simple action, Jokic and the Nuggets have more or less solved the Late-Career Russell Westbrook Conundrum, which torments coaches who want him on the floor because he's a singular athlete who can grab any rebound he wants and run a fast break at light speed, but absolutely do not want him tossing errant passes all over the court and throwing up wild layups that are lucky to find rim. As it turns out, it's pretty hard to turn the ball over when you are only passing to Nikola Jokic, and nothing leads to a cleaner look at the rim than a cut that calls out for a Jokic pass. Westbrook is currently shooting 69 percent at the rim, which is the best mark of his entire damn career.

Will this all eventually blow up in the Nuggets' faces? Possibly! As fun as it has been to watch Westbrook and Jokic transform the Nuggets' offense into a weirder but equally effective version of itself, success in the postseason will be hard to find without Murray getting his shit together and reassuming his role as Jokic's favorite dance partner. What we can say for now is that there is no better place for a player to try and salvage his crumbling career than within the warm glow of Nikola Jokic. I think we all know what needs to happen next: Ben Simmons gets bought out in Brooklyn and comes to Denver for the league minimum.