National Basketball Association

Russell Westbrook is treading water with his new deal

Published Nov. 15, 2016 3:13 p.m. ET

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Dieter Kurtenbach

Russell Westbrook was a goner. After Kevin Durant orphaned him in Oklahoma City with his move to the Warriors, it was only a matter of time before the point guard moved on from the Thunder, right?

Well, Westbrook might be a goner yet, but he won’t be leaving Oklahoma City this summer, because according to multiple reports, he is set to sign a three-year max extension with the Thunder this week.

Westbrook had one year remaining on his contract, and the new extension will add one guaranteed year and a player option season beyond that.

So the All-Star won’t be traded to the Celtics, Lakers, or Heat this summer. But save those thoughts, because we might be doing this all again this time next year. That’s because this deal is nothing more than a mutually agreed upon delay.

Some will point to this new deal as a sign that Westbrook is committed to the Thunder long-term. It isn’t, because if he was, he would have signed long-term, and a deal that he can opt out of in the summer of 2018 cannot be considered long-term.

This is a wait-and-see contract — it might say that it’s three years in length, but in reality, it only buys Westbrook and the Thunder this upcoming season.

Westbrook evidently wasn’t going to sign a five-year deal with the Thunder — a wise move for him considering the franchise is stuck between stations — but he didn’t want to bolt from a team that, to be fair, has a good deal of promise. To demand a trade this summer would be bad for Westbrook’s public image and it might have turned out to be a bad basketball move as well — the Celtics were the only viable destination for the point guard.

The Thunder aren’t that far behind Boston today, and they have a good deal of upside, too. Why not buy a year and see how it plays out?

While the Warriors have consolidated power in the Western Conference, the Spurs continued getting older — they’ll only be LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard soon. It probably won’t happen next year, but should the Thunder’s young players progress and a max-level free agent sign in the summer of 2017, Oklahoma City could well be the second-best team in the Western Conference and title contenders in the not-so-distant future.

That status won’t be achieved this year — this 2016-17 Thunder team has the 5th seed written all over it. Not bad, but certainly not great; and in the NBA, you better be great or heading towards it. The Thunder are starting over, but the path to greatness is still in front of them. It’s going to take a year to see if they’re actually on that path, though.

If the Thunder underperform, or Westbrook doesn’t like the way the young players around him are developing, or Blake Griffin doesn’t return home to Oklahoma City as a free agent, Westbrook and the team are going to be back in the same situation they were immediately following Durant’s departure — professional purgatory. This time next year, Westbrook will have one year remaining on his deal (superstars don’t opt in), just like he did this summer. Only in the summer of 2017, Westbrook will be a year older —the mileage from that year will likely be immense — and he’ll have a clearer understanding of the landscape not only internally with the Thunder, but also with possible trade partners around the league.

The worst-case scenario of running in place for a year would also be a prudent financial move by Westbrook. By the time the point guard has a chance to opt out of his deal, he’ll have 10 years of NBA service under his belt, meaning he can get 35 percent of the salary cap on his next contract — no matter which team he’s with — up from the 30 percent he would have been able to get had he not agreed to this extension (these numbers, of course, could change with the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, which will be negotiated before the 2017-18 season.)

It’s a smart play for Westbrook; he doesn’t have to make the biggest decision of his career — stay or go — amid a sea of uncertainty with limited options, and should he decide to leave Oklahoma City either next summer through a trade or the following year through free agency, he’ll have more suitors and will be paid more to boot.

It could all work out for the Thunder — the team could thrive next season, show the NBA that they’re a budding forced to be reckoned with, and attract a big-name player to join Westbrook on the prairie. Or Westbrook and the Thunder tread water for a year and we do the whole “where will he be traded?” thing again next summer.

Now, given Westbrook’s style of play and the fact that Clippers will likely re-sign Griffin, all signs point to the latter option coming to fruition. The Lakers might be looking mighty attractive a year from now. Maybe the Celtics will look to be one point guard away from title contention after a season with Al Horford. Other teams might come out of the woodwork over the course of 12 months.

But anything could happen — for now, the only thing we know is that it's going to happen with Westbrook in Oklahoma City.

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