Veteran guard Russell Westbrook slammed local media for inaccurate reporting during the Sacramento Kings' league-worst season. Westbrook challenged reporters for making broad statements without attending practices or film sessions, stating he felt obligated to defend his teammates from unfair criticism and baseless rumors.
Sacramento Kings' 2025-26 campaign is a nightmare that just never seems to end.
Russell Westbrook
Russell Westbrook
Russell Westbrook
MIN: 28.89
PTS: 15.32 (47.66%)
REB: 5.31
AS: 6.39
ST: 1.31
BL: 0.19
TO: 3.39
GM: 59
Sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference, their 14-50 record is the worst in the league as of now.
Russell Westbrook joined the Kings this year as a free agent and played 56 games so far, averaging 15.3 points, 6.4 assists and 5.3 rebounds on 29 minutes per match.
37-year old veteran point guard was fed up with local beat writers and reporters talking negatively about the franchise and gave them a chance to talk to him personally about the problems.
Westbrook was firstly asked what is the goal of the Kings for the remaining 18 games of the season:
"Go out and compete, that’s all you can do. What y’all think though? You guys got a lot of answers. Y’all always be talking, here's your chance now," Westbrook responded.
"You guys make a lot of broad statements with no context. Where do you get your context from? Are you at practice? Are you at our film sessions? Are you anywhere around the building? Do you know me? You don’t know me, but you make a lot of comments like you do know me,” Westbrook said.
"You guys are making false comments about the team, and I don’t appreciate that. If you don’t know, don’t say nothing you don’t know nothing about. That’s particularly for you,” Westbrook said emphatically as he pointed at one specific reporter in the press room."
Westbrook continued his rant and elaborated why he opted to approach the reporters in this manner:
"What I don't like is that I've been in the league a long time, and I've been around a lot of different organizations, media, beat writers. You guys' job is to talk about the game, what's happening in the game, not stir up a bunch of—I don't want to cuss here because I don't want to get fined—but stir up a bunch of stuff that it's not accurate," he said.
"The media has been my thing in a minute. But as a leader of this team, it's my job to speak up for the guys in the locker room. We talk about it. They see it. I hear it. Because of the comments you guys make, you got guys thinking about a whole bunch of random things that have nothing to do with the game."
"You guys are making false comments about our team and what we're doing here, and I don't appreciate that. So my answer is that you respect what we do, and we respect what you do," he concluded.
Thank you for reading us! We have even more content for you.
If you like our content, please click here and add us as your preferred source. It helps us a lot, and we are committed to delivering you the very latest basketball news.