Westbrook was never one of my favorite players during most of his prime, but seeing how Westbrook has handled his last few years helped me gain a lot of respect for him.
Sure he never was the lead guy on a championship team, but his competitiveness is amazing. He played his best through all the Lakers drama. Westbrook also put up 37 in a playoff game in the most recent playoffs. I’m quite a huge fan of this late-career Westbrook.
Kobe - when I first started following the NBA as a kid, Kobe was the player I liked to root against. Near the end of his career I had nothing but love for him.
Chris Paul. I’ve always known how good of a player he is, but I had the same problems with him that everyone else does until he went to the Thunder. From the beginning of that year everyone was expecting them to literally be the worst team in the league and he was considered washed. He could’ve easily decided to not play, as is the trend, but he gave it his all and was a professional night in and night out. He was the best player on that team that shouldn’t have been even close to the playoffs and was one timely James Harden block away from the second round. He played a big mentor role to SGA that I think still shows to this day. 2019-20 was one of the best seasons to be a Thunder fan largely because of him, and we’re talking about a team that contended every single year from 2010 until 2016