Mark Cuban Says Russell Westbrook Isn't a Superstar, This Was His Rationale

Mark Cuban’s comments about Russell Westbrook are getting a lot of pickup this evening. The Mavs owner said that Kevin Durant is the only superstar on the Thunder; conventional wisdom is that Westbrook is also one. The gist of his point was that the team faltered last year in Durant was hurt, and that, compared to what Dirk Nowitzki has done Westbrook should’ve been better equipped to put the team on his back.

“You look at Dirk [Nowitzki],” Cuban told ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “I’m not going to talk about other teams’ player, I guess other than what I just said, but Dirk for 15 years won 50 games no matter what. We put Moe, Larry and Curly next to him and we won 50 games. Russ is certainly an All-Star, but I consider Durant a superstar.”

Cuban also said that a superstar is someone you know you can count on to have the ball in his hands in crunch time, and MacMahon cited NBA.com’s clutch metric, which has Westbrook shooting under 40% from the field in the final five minutes of games, as well as the fact that he’s abysmal from three-point range.

Westbrook has the opportunity to make Cuban eat his words directly, by helping the Thunder close out the Mavs in the first round. Beyond that, playing like a cyborg against the Spurs in the next round and Warriors if OKC can beat San Antonio (and Golden State advances, which seems more probable than not) would do more than anything anyone could say or write to prove Cuban wrong.