The fallout between former Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant was one of the most bitter divorces we've seen in the NBA of late. As it turns out, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant might have had something to do about what eventually led to an ugly parting of ways between the two stars.
ESPN's NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski himself shared this narrative in a recent episode of “The Woj Pod” podcast:
“In 2012, what I remember with Kobe was he spent a lot of the – or he spent some of that – Olympics with Russell Westbrook telling Russ, ‘You know, you should be winning scoring titles. I don’t know why you’re letting Kevin win scoring titles. You should be the one winning them.' Anything he could do to plant a little seed of dissent with two teammates, it was pretty funny,” Woj narrated, via Den Feldman of NBC Sports.
For some context, the Thunder had just defeated Kobe's Lakers in the second round of the playoffs in the season prior to the 2012 Olympics. The Durant-Westbrook duo led OKC all the way to the Finals, with Durant ending up as the scoring champion that season. Clearly, Bryant was cleverly trying to spice things up between the two, presumably in the hope that it would turn out to be advantageous for the Lakers.
Little did Bryant know that this would eventually lead to a falling out for the ages, as Durant eventually left the Thunder to link up with the Golden State Warriors. Westbrook felt utterly betrayed, and this led to a feud between the two former buddies.
It would be foolish to put this all on Kobe, though, as he merely instigated a fire that was already burning long before.
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