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.
It’s just become so hard to hate LeBron, he’s really had the ideal career from a media standpoint. Besides the fact that’s he’s still undeniably great at 39 fucking years old, he’s just never really had any big scandals or anything and comes off like a decent guy at all times, and over a 20 year career if you’re a piece of shit it’ll come out.