Russell Westbrook

One of the most formidable players in the NBA for nearly a decade, Russell Westbrook broke league records in a number of fields, including points and tenures on the All-Star team, during his stellar run as a point guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Born Russell Westbrook, Jr., in Long Beach, California on November 12, 1988, he was raised in the South Bay city of Hawthorne and attended Leuzinger High School in nearby Lawndale. He played three largely unremarkable years on the school's basketball team before blooming to 6'3 in his senior year, which improved his court performance considerably; by the end of the year, Westbrook was averaging 25.1 a game and ranked as the No. 2 shooting guard on the West Coast. He played for the UCLA Bruins on a scholarship and again, posted modest numbers until his sophomore year, when he averaged 12.7 points a game and was named the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. At the end of his second year at UCLA, Westbrook entered the NBA draft in 2008 and was selected 4th overall by the Seattle Supersonics, which due to sale and relocation was renamed the Oklahoma City Thunder soon after. Westbrook quickly rose to prominence on the team, becoming the third rookie in franchise history to earn a triple-double - 17 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists - in his first year of play. By the following year, he had made the NBA All-Rookie First Team and aided the Thunder in their bid for the 2009 playoffs with 20.5 points in their first round battle against the Los Angeles Lakers. Though they were eventually defeated, the Thunder remained a force to be reckoned with, thanks to Westbrook's remarkable skills: he was twice named to the All-Star Games in 2010 and 2011, and led the team to the NBA Finals the following year. After winning the FIBA World Championship in 2010 and the gold medal for basketball in the 2012 Summer Olympics, Westbrook returned again to the All-Star team and brought the Thunder back to the playoffs, though an injury kept him off the court until the launch of the 2013-14 season. Once back in the fold, he again posted remarkable numbers, including the second fastest recorded triple double in NBA history in a 2014 game against the 76ers, and led the Thunder to the Western Conference Finals, where he broke Oscar Robertson's five-decade-long record of 26 points in the playoffs. A hand injury kept him out of the beginning of the 2015 season, but Westbrook returned to form soon after, earning the All-Star MVP award for the 2015 games and becoming the second player in league history to average 30 points a game for a calendar month; by 2016, he was the third player in NBA history to score back-to-back All-Star MVP awards, and boasted 31 triple-doubles over the course of his career to date.