When most people think of the Oklahoma City Thunder, it is hard to put your finger on whether Russell Westbrook or Kevin Durant is the star of the team. For Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, it is easy, Kevin Durant is the star. Russell Westbrook is not quite there yet, according to Cuban.
Russell Westbrook is a five-time NBA All-Star, four-time second-team All-NBA selection, averaged 23.5 points, 10.4 assists and 7.8 rebounds this season and his 18 triple-doubles were the most by any player in a season since Magic Johnson. Yet despite all that, he’s not a star in Cuban’s eyes.
If this is a ploy to butter up Kevin Durant before he hits free agency this summer, there are better ways to go about it.
Following from Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas.
Cuban made a point before Monday’s Game 5 to refer to Kevin Durant as the “one superstar” on the Oklahoma City Thunder. What about Westbrook?
“I think he’s an All-Star but not a superstar,” Cuban said.
“You look at Dirk [Nowitzki],” Cuban said, citing his franchise player as an example of a superstar. “I’m not going to talk about other teams’ player, I guess other than what I just said, but Dirk for 15 years won 50 games no matter what. We put Moe, Larry and Curly next to him and we won 50 games. Russ is certainly an All-Star, but I consider Durant a superstar.
“When you look at Dirk, all those years until now, he carries teams to 50 wins. To me, that’s the sign of a superstar. It wasn’t until we got [Jason] Kidd that we had another Hall of Famer, and even J. Kidd was towards the end of his career. So for [11] years when Dirk won 50, that’s a superstar. There are only a few guys where you can put them on any team and they win 50 games. To me, that’s the definition of a superstar.”
“The way I define a superstar is, who do you want the ball in the hands of at the end of a game when you need a bucket?” Cuban said. “Who do you know that can get off that shot and make that shot? And that’s your superstar. Or make that play. Like J. Kidd wasn’t a great shooter, but you knew he was going to make the right play on either side. Without question, that’s Dirk. J. Kidd in his prime, that was him.
“But I don’t think there’s many teams that have more than one. Typically, you’re going to find one guy that you want the ball in the hands of at the end of the game. That truly is the definition of who you want. On the other side of the bar here [points to the Thunder bench], there’s only one guy that you’d want the ball in the hands of.”
