What do you think about the Laker team now?

You follow the box scores of the games every day?

Just the Lakers.

You're kidding.

That is really a compliment.

I was pleased to see you smile at the top bar show because once the game starts, you have a game face.

You don't smile much out there.

I don't think you have to do things for money anymore. Correct. What's up, Laker fans? Welcome to the Laker Filmroom podcast, brought to by the Blue Wire Podcast Network. I'm Pete, joined by Mike. Darius is out today, but we're joined by a special guest as we wrap up Westbrook Week. Over the course of this week, we've had pods on his playmaking, his shooting, his defense, and his play in transition, which we're, I'm super excited about. We're going to look at him through a different lens today, though, from someone who's covered him about as long or longer than anyone who has. And that's Royce Young from ESPN. Royce, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, man, it's my pleasure. I love talking Russ. So this is, this, this will be good times. As do we. So, yeah, so Royce, we recorded, I don't know, 17 podcasts about Westbrook over the last month or so. So you're now here, just fact check everything. Okay. I can do that. I can do that. Yeah, could we, could we start Royce just with like from the beginning, right?

You were there in Oklahoma.

So your first impressions, like how he hit the fan base, how you first saw him on the basketball

car.

I'm just curious kind of the genesis of the Westbrook that you saw and how that all began for you.

I mean, that's a great question because, you know, if you rewind back, Mike, you know,

Russell Westbrook was actually drafted by the Supersonics.

Like he wore a Supersonics hat on draft night.

And then, I don't know, a month later, he's playing in Summer League with Oklahoma City wearing a generic, I think it just

said Oklahoma City basketball. They didn't even have a team name at the time. So like Russell

Westbrook truly was like the foundation of the existence of professional basketball in Oklahoma

City. And so, you know, he comes in and when he was drafted, he was kind of seen to, you know, the thunder

when they relocated, they had this guy that everybody thought was going to be like the pillar,

the franchise piece in Kevin Durant.

Everybody understood that they knew how transcendent he could be.

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