By Pierre-Andréa Fraile | Sports journalist
Recruited last July by Denver as a free agent, Russell Westbrook has gradually found his place alongside Nikola Jokic. Recently, he has also focused on the relationship he has had for several months with the Serbian pivot.
Initially, he was only supposed to don a substitute costume under his new colors. A relatively logical observation, knowing that Russell Westbrook mainly occupied this role in recent years in NBA. However, this did not really work for the Nuggets and earned him some mockery at the start of the season. Never mind, Mike Malone decided to make him a regular starter and doesn’t have to regret it.
Russell Westbrook honest about his ties to Nikola Jokic
A 13-time starter with Denver, Westbrook not only displays remarkable averages (13.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, 8.4 assists, 2.3 interceptions), but also an excellent collective record (10-3) in this context. His agreement with Nikola Jokicit stands out more and more to the eye. This should not surprise him, he who finds himself in some way in the pivot-star. He declared at a press conference:
Russell Westbrook : With him, everything is easier. He knows how to make things easy for everyone around him on the field. Besides, historically, I have done the same thing for my teammates. But when you have a talent like that at your side, you have to know how to use it without overusing it. Anyway, I’m grateful to play with him and I try to make things easy for him too.
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If they are now shining alongside each other, the two MVPs took a long time to achieve this. Russ readily admits this and attributes this slow acclimatization to an initially reduced playing time together:
Russell Westbrook : Off the field, we quickly developed chemistry but on the field, we both didn’t play much right away.
But the more minutes we spent together on the floor, the more our understanding developed naturally.
We therefore only had to wait five months for Brodie to find his feet with his Serbian teammate, with whom he understood each other without even having to say a single word, according to him:
Russell Westbrook : Now that I’m his teammate, I notice even more his attention to detail and his understanding of the game. He’s not someone who’s very talkative internally, far from it, but that doesn’t stop us from talking a lot during games. matches. Often you don’t even need to say anything to communicate, which is great. We see and think the same things, it’s great.
A sort of bet, the signing of Russell Westbrook to the Nuggets is gradually turning into a real success. This, in particular thanks to the cohesion displayed by the leader with Nikola Jokic, whose knowledge of basketball apparently corresponds to his own.