{"id":817092,"date":"2026-08-21T04:57:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T04:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/817092\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T04:57:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T04:57:25","slug":"russell-westbrook-foreshadowed-retirement-in-answer-to-young-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/817092\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Westbrook foreshadowed retirement in answer to young fan"},"content":{"rendered":"


Russell Westbrook <\/a>seemed to have had his mind already made up long before officially hanging up his shoes.<\/p>\n

At the end of July, Westbrook’s “Why Not Foundation” held its annual two-day basketball camp for kids ages 7-14 at Jesse Owens Park and Loma Alta Park, with free admission for campers.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Westbrook’s foundation posted a montage of the miked-up retired guard on social media, and one specific clip seemed to catch the attention of many Westbrook fans.<\/p>\n

During the camp, a young camper posed a question to Westbrook.<\/p>\n

“Are you a real NBA player?” the young camper asked.<\/p>\n

Westbrook’s response?<\/p>\n

“Some days. I used to be back in the day — back in my young days.”<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, Westbrook announced his retirement after 18 seasons<\/a>after on social media with a video narrated by Oscar-winning actor Michael B. Jordan.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you don’t even know when you’ve already watched the end,” Westbrook wrote. “You had to be there. And now it’s over.”<\/p>\n

Westbrook, 37, a Long Beach, California, native, was selected in the 2008 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, who shortly thereafter became the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> after a 2006 sale to an Oklahoma City ownership group.<\/p>\n

He was part of the inaugural Thunder squad and spent 11 seasons in the 405 — most notably earning MVP honors in the 2016-17 season after averaging a triple-double — before being included in a 2019 blockbuster trade to the Houston Rockets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He also had stints with the Washington Wizards<\/a>, Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>, LA Clippers<\/a>, Denver Nuggets<\/a> and most recently the Sacramento Kings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Westbrook, a nine-time All-Star, finished his career averaging 20.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 8 assists per game.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Westbrook seemed to have had his mind already made up long before officially hanging up his shoes.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[97728,7,130,292,194,4066,192,150,6,179,211,477,468,38829],"class_list":["post-817092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-97728","tag-basketball","tag-espn","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-la-clippers","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-rockets","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-washington-wizards","tag-westbrook-russell"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117131728854266547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}