LAWNDALE, Calif. — “Go residence,” Russell Westbrook yelled at a heckler seated behind the gamers’ bench. “Go residence,” he repeated.
The gang at this late-February blowout to the lowly New Orleans Pelicans had turned quick. The boos and taunts have been so unhealthy that Mr. Westbrook’s Los Angeles Lakers teammates regarded able to confront followers within the first row. LeBron James received right into a sideline debate with one trash talker, whereas Trevor Ariza needed to be bodily restrained from confronting one other.
“You’re not Kobe, you’re not Kobe,” a fan slurred, mentioned Michael Morales, who filmed the courtside trade on the Crypto.com Area in Los Angeles.
Drunk individuals yelling is regular. Athletes yelling back isn’t — particularly at followers in seats that run $3,500 a pop.
“I’m a die-hard Laker fan,” mentioned Mr. Morales, a 38-year-old postal employee who drives throughout city after each shift, coming to extra video games than Jack Nicholson and posting close-up clips that may earn him hundreds of {dollars} on Fb Reels. However “proper now,” he mentioned, “it’s laborious to look at.” Mr. Morales’s ache, and additional revenue, will finish quickly: On Tuesday evening, after a loss to Phoenix, the Lakers have been eradicated from the postseason.
Mr. Westbrook joined the Lakers final July, after stints on the Houston Rockets and Washington Wizards marred by damage and a case of Covid, in a blockbuster trade that introduced him to the group he grew up idolizing.
Although his efficiency this season has made him the goal of offended followers, a lot of Mr. Westbrook’s off-court life appears to be thriving. There’s a revealing new Showtime film, a History Channel documentary, a current artwork e-book, a clothes line with a brand new assortment, together with an academic basis and neighborhood involvement that belies his temperamental picture.
All of that ought to come as no shock to many who’ve adopted his profession or been concerned with it. “He is aware of learn how to be a star,” mentioned Simon Doonan, who spent three a long time as Barneys New York’s inventive director.
Mr. Doonan, now a decide on the TV present “Making It,” calls previous collections with Mr. Westbrook the place he “chosen materials, engaged on and approving designs,” and shot videos collectively, “the most fun I’ve had in my profession.”
However whereas Mr. Westbrook’s off-court life is crammed with successes, his basketball season has been so rocky that the hometown trustworthy have turned on the Los Angeles native — a lot in order that his spouse just lately tweeted that the household had been despatched “dying needs.” The previous Laker Shaquille O’Neal has advised slowing down, and he’s even been benched and shopped in commerce talks.
Mr. Westbrook has reacted to the boos and taunts of “Westbrick” with defiance; chatting with a pool of reporters after the Pelicans loss, he mentioned, “I received three stunning youngsters at my home, my spouse, I ain’t taking it residence.”
However simply days later, in a postgame interview, he shifted, saying that the taunts had gotten to him, alluding to extra vital issues than basketball, a revelation that was an identical vein to the Showtime movie, “Passion Play,” by which he’s introspective in a method that may nonetheless be unusual amongst skilled athletes. “The way in which I compete has made me a simple goal,” he says within the movie, nearly as if there are two Russells. “Within the sports activities world, I’m the unhealthy man. Individuals don’t actually perceive who I’m. I’ll be mendacity to say it didn’t have an effect on me.”
The Return
Born in Lengthy Seashore, Calif., Mr. Westbrook grew up in Hawthorne, close to South Central Los Angeles, went to highschool in Lawndale, then spent two years in Westwood on the College of California, Los Angeles. He entered the N.B.A. in 2008 and instantly grew to become identified for his fiery play and vogue sense.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, the New York Knicks star Walt “Clyde” Frazier launched player-endorsed sneakers, mink coats, Zorro hats and capes. Twenty years later, Dennis Rodman raised the bar, as soon as wearing a wedding dress to a e-book signing. Within the social media period, Mr. Westbrook has turned the sector tunnel right into a pregame catwalk.
Being 6-foot-3 means he can store off the rack, however he not often performs it secure, preferring vivid patterns or, say, a white kilt at the Thom Browne spring 2022 show — daring statements within the hyper-macho sports activities world.
He has embraced his function as vogue star with vigor, spending fashion weeks in New York, Paris and Milan with the likes of Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld, Raymond Pettibon and Tim Coppens.
“You wouldn’t wish to get in his method on the courtroom. In particular person, he’s completely totally different,” mentioned Anthony Petrillose, the affiliate writer of Rizzoli New York, which printed “Russell Westbrook: Style Drivers,” with cowl artwork by Mr. Pettibon. “The expertise was, ‘I’m right here to be taught, I would like the very best e-book — how can we do it?’”
Honor the Present, Mr. Westbrook’s vogue model, has carried out pop-ups in Los Angeles and Paris and launched a group earlier this month known as the Concrete Jungle. The summer season capsule assortment was a homage to swap meets; last fall, it was a halcyon reimagining of the soul soundtrack to rising up in Hawthorne.
“Russell takes vogue each bit as severely as he does being some extent guard,” mentioned Ms. Wintour, who final noticed him in November at Madison Square Garden, the place he “generously introduced me along with his sneakers postgame. They have been somewhat too giant for me, however luckily I used to be with my 6-4 nephew, who fortunately took them.”
However the Lakers misplaced that evening — and Mr. Westbrook seems sad on the job. Whereas he’s labored with Nike’s Jordan model on a full-foot system for his footwear, pored over Honor the Present designs, and punctiliously constructed his homecoming, the basketball slot in Los Angeles has been bumpy.
In June of final yr, Honor the Present teamed with Jordan and Mr. Westbrook’s Why Not? Foundation, constructing a basketball courtroom and sponsoring tech and design workshops at a Y.M.C.A. within the metropolis’s Crenshaw District. (Jordan has produced Westbrook’s signature shoe and Why Not? attire since 2018.) The nonprofit basis, named after a favourite saying, supports social initiatives and faculties.
“Type is a weapon and that doesn’t finish with clothes,” mentioned Sam Sohaili, who runs DMA United, a inventive company that has labored with Mr. Westbrook on model offers. “Russell’s fashion is how he interacts with individuals.”
Such interactions help the two-Russells concept: relishing the villain function, then taking part in reverse. (Regardless of a number of makes an attempt, Mr. Westbrook declined to remark for this text.)
Taking part in in Los Angeles additionally means Hollywood. “Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre,” which he executive produced, premiered final Might and different initiatives are in improvement.
And simply when he seems to be one other movie star cashing in, he crosses over. Throughout a grueling taking part in interval in December, days after coming into the N.B.A.’s security protocols due to optimistic coronavirus checks within the group’s touring social gathering, then testing negative for Covid, Mr. Westbrook donned a Santa hat and grinchy tracksuit, posed for photographs and gave every Why Not? student new sneakers.
“Typically the precedence ain’t what you receives a commission for,” famous the legendary Compton rapper DJ Quik simply earlier than the Lakers have been crushed by the crosstown Clippers in March.
Leuzinger
South of the Crypto.com Area, at Leuzinger Excessive College in working-class Lawndale, one of many first belongings you see is a 50-foot mural of a hovering you-know-who plastered on the Gloria Ramos Cafeteria. Throughout campus, within the Thompson Gymnasium, a well-known identify and jersey quantity cling above the courtroom the place Mr. Westbrook led the Olympians to a 25-4 document as a senior again in 2006.
“It was inevitable that he’d go to the N.B.A.,” recalled Patrick Cleveland, a highschool teammate who lived down the road from Mr. Westbrook and now coaches and works as a security officer right here.
We spoke simply because the commerce deadline handed and the Lakers determined to not deal Mr. Westbrook. In Lawndale he’s nonetheless a prince of the town who got here up laborious, made good and stayed true.
To know the 2 Russells means understanding a tragic what if, mentioned Marlon Mendez, a coach from again within the day and now the college’s athletic director. What if Mr. Westbrook’s finest buddy Khelcey Barrs hadn’t collapsed after a string of pickup video games at Los Angeles Southwest School on Might 11, 2004?
Khelcey was a 6-foot-6 sophomore headed for the N.B.A., till a coronary heart situation ended all the pieces at 16. “All of us had that chip on our shoulder, however Russell took it on,” Mr. Cleveland mentioned. “All people thinks he’s this high-energy man. Individuals don’t perceive what he performs for. We have been all damage, however he was the one who was capable of make that identify proceed. I’m grateful Russell made it and carried that identify with him.”
After he died, Mr. Westbrook would stroll throughout the road and do Khelcey’s chores earlier than class. In the present day, he wears wristbands and footwear with the initials KB3, Leuzinger basketball is sponsored by Jordan and the onetime highschool star stays a fixture.
“I grew up round him,” mentioned Amire Jones, a 16-year-old junior and guard from Compton. “In school, video games, Jordan occasions. It’s loopy as a result of an N.B.A. participant went to your college and he’s somebody I can attain out to.”
It’s not unusual for Mr. Westbrook to drop in, mentioned Mr. Jones, the son of the Leuzinger coach Arturo Jones, one in every of many formative figures Mr. Westbrook nonetheless leans on. “His legacy supplies alternatives for us. He’s uplifting. As soon as I used to be understanding with him, lacking pictures, he pulled me apart. He mentioned: ‘Confidence, don’t cease. You miss 20, preserve capturing.’”
What about Mr. Westbrook’s personal confidence? The boos?
“There’s loads of negativity round him for no cause,” Mr. Jones mentioned. “He’s going to maintain capturing. He doesn’t care. It’s Russ.”
