Westbrook was never one of my favorite players during most of his prime, but seeing how Westbrook has handled his last few years helped me gain a lot of respect for him.

Sure he never was the lead guy on a championship team, but his competitiveness is amazing. He played his best through all the Lakers drama. Westbrook also put up 37 in a playoff game in the most recent playoffs. I’m quite a huge fan of this late-career Westbrook.

Kobe - when I first started following the NBA as a kid, Kobe was the player I liked to root against. Near the end of his career I had nothing but love for him.

  • WhereDaHinkieFlair@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Ben Simmons.

    Not only did I used to think that he didn’t suck and that he wanted to be in the NBA, but I even used to think he was good and that he wanted to be great.

    • UrbanJatt@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      There was a time when Philly fans were debating trading embiid and building around Ben Simmons.

      • user_15427@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Lol I love how people just pretend that didn’t happen. Everyone just acts like they don’t remember. The majority of people were on the trade Embiid side too. I was alway so confused by it, like are we watching the same players?

        • TheMightyCatatafish@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          In Philadelphia, the majority of us were very much not in favor of trading Embiid.

          I’m sure you had a handful of WIP callers saying that, but that’s a constant in Philly media.

          Embiid was pretty much always preferred over Simmons by our fan base.

          • Yup767@alien.topBEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            Yeah it was an opinion plenty of people had, but the majority was in favour of trading Embiid

            • TheMightyCatatafish@alien.topBEnglish
              1·
              2 years ago

              The majority of folks here were definitely NOT in favor of trading Embiid. I’m sure there were people who thought it. But that was absolutely not the majority in town at the time. Or ever when the two were here.

              Simmons was always scrutinized here for his refusal to shoot.

    • slayhern@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      That 14 game stretch or whatever without embiid before the playoffs legit made me think we were seeing the birth of the next superstar. The shit he pulled in that lakers game was insane.

    • Dragonsandman@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      My dad went sour on Simmons within like two years of Simmons entering the league. I thought my dad was just on some boomer shit, but he called almost all the problems Simmons had from a mile away

      • jondonbovi@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I wish they would have traded him after 2018 or 2019 when his value was really high.

        All it takes to build a contender around Embiid is a PG and wing players who can defend and shoot.

        • BASEDME7O2@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          Even if Ben was always 100% healthy they could have never won with him. You can’t win when every time your pg brings the ball up his man is standing under the basket.