Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook looked back into the past for a brief minute during a talk with comedian Kevin Hart during his YouTube show Cold As Balls. The thought of former teammates Kevin Durant and James Harden sprung along in conversation, leading only to Westbrook to delve into the ‘what if they would have stayed together' scenario
“Definitely. We made it to The Finals when we were 23. If we would have stayed together, we could have been a problem, for sure,” said Westbrook. “We talked about it a couple years after that, but nothing much since. Everybody else has been talking about it ever since.”
Durant was the first of the trio to earn an NBA MVP, doing so in 2014. Then came Westbrook, who mustered the first triple-double season since Oscar Robertson in 1961-62. The most recent was Harden, the reigning MVP who is fighting for another — making it three future MVP-talents in one team.
However, there is some hesitation as to whether any of these players would have reached such heights with each other around.
Durant won his MVP award in a season in which Westbrook played only 46 games, forcing him to put the Thunder on his shoulders and carry them to the playoffs on his own. That reflected into his best scoring season, a 32-point clip through 81 games that made him a surefire pick for the Most Valuable Player award.
Westbrook's triple-double season would not have taken place if Durant and Harden were around and needed the ball, as a one-man wrecking crew took the eyes and hearts of NBA fans during 2016-17 to capture his first award.
Harden's monstrous MVP season came after leading the Rockets to 65 wins in 2017-18, a feat he only accomplished after soaking in Mike D'Antoni's system and teaming up with Chris Paul.
While the three players could have rained down some pain in the rest of the Western Conference, it's heavily unlikely either of them would have reached MVP heights, as they have under their circumstances.
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