Russell Westbrook deserves all the credit he’s received for moving to the bench and committing more fully to the small things that helps his team win. Doing so amid whatever this last season and change has been can’t possibly have been easy, especially as he and everyone around him knows he’s still likely to be traded sooner rather than later. But that’s the thing: Even given the success he’s enjoyed in that role, it still feels like a final, slightly more optimistic chapter at the end of a novel about the apocalypse.
Rob Pelinka, even by professional sports executive standards, does not offer straightforward statements.