If there's one thing you can say about Russell Westbrook's first stint with the Los Angeles Lakers, it's that he was clearly their best player. Wait, what?

That's the double-take worthy message Lakers owner Jeanie Buss initially had on Russell Westbrook during her recent interview with The Athletic's Sam Amick.

Via The Athletic:

“From my point of view, (Westbrook) was our best player last year.”

Yes, as you might imagine, I did a double take when Jeanie shared her viewpoint that Westbrook was the best the Lakers had to offer last season. By most accounts — yours truly included — his debut season with the Lakers was an unmitigated disaster. 

Even the writer himself couldn't believe those words came from the very woman cutting the checks for a team that completely underachieved last season. Amick later reached out to Jeanie Buss to make sure he had what she said correctly – which allowed her a chance to bring out the white-out and replace “best” with “consistent”.

So after the interview ended, when I realized that I’d failed to follow up quickly enough to get total clarity on this stunning take, I decided to send Buss a note asking if this was her actual belief.

“The word I should have used was ‘consistent,’” the Lakers owner wrote via text message. “He played 78 games last season.”

For all of Russell Westbrook's faults last season, he was at least his usual ironman self playing in nearly all purple and gold contests. He also posted pretty gaudy box score numbers that still is a testament to his versatility as a player, despite not playing like the third star the team hoped he would become.

The Lakers had dealt with lingering injuries from both LeBron James and Anthony Davis during each of the last two season and having one of their stars show up night in and night out certainly was important. However, it's his productivity on the court – particularly when the two other stars were present – that made him such a polarizing figure in LA.