Denver Nuggets guard Russell Westbrook (4) reacts before the game against the Washington Wizards at Ball Arena.
Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
Russell Westbrook, a nine-time NBA All-Star and former league MVP, announced his retirement on Wednesday afternoon with a social media post.
In a video he posted on X titled “The Museum of Unspoken Answers,” narrated by actor Michael B. Jordan, Westbrook looked back on his historic basketball career before Jordan ended his narration by asking the former MVP, “Now that you decided to step away from everything on your own terms, what are you the most proud of?”
Westbrook simply went from looking at the camera to looking at the ground in pure silence, soaking in what these last 18 years in the NBA meant to him. His post attached to this video had the following caption: “Sometimes you don’t even know when you’ve already watched the end. You had to be there. And now it’s over.”
BREAKING: Russell Westbrook is retiring from the NBA after 18 seasons.
He posted this self-tribute video on his social media platforms.
Happy retirement, Russ 👏
(via @russwest44)pic.twitter.com/qsjpcDaHU2
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 12, 2026
Westbrook finished his 18th and what turned out to be his final NBA season as a member of the Sacramento Kings during the 2025-26 season. The Kings were the seventh NBA franchise Westbrook played for.
Originally drafted fourth overall in 2008 by the Seattle SuperSonics, Westbrook began his career as one of the young faces of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the franchise's first season since relocating and rebranding. Immediately, Westbrook became a franchise cornerstone alongside Kevin Durant and James Harden, who joined the organization in 2009.
Westbrook spent the first 11 years of his Hall-of-Fame career with the Thunder, where he helped lead the team to nine different playoff performances, four trips to the Western Conference Finals, and advancing to the 2011-12 NBA Finals. There, the Thunder fell in five games to LeBron James and the Miami Heat.
His rise to ascension continued in Oklahoma City, as Westbrook averaged 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, and 10.4 assists per game during the 2016-17 season after Durant departed for the Golden State Warriors in free agency.
Capturing his second scoring title and after joining Oscar Robertson as the only other player in league history (at the time) to have averaged a triple-double over the course of an entire season, Westbrook was named the 2016-17 NBA Most Valuable Player.
Article Continues Below
For three consecutive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19, Westbrook averaged a triple-double, setting the NBA record for most triple-doubles in a single season with 42 in 81 games during his 2016-17 MVP year.
After the 2018-19 season in Oklahoma City, with him wanting a change in his career and the organization taking things in a new direction, the two sides mutually agreed to part ways, and he was traded to the Houston Rockets in a deal that involved Chris Paul.
He spent one season playing in Houston alongside James Harden before he was again traded a year later to the Washington Wizards for John Wall. In one season with the Wizards, Westbrook averaged 22.2 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 11.7 assists per game, registering his fourth season averaging a triple-double, the most in NBA history.
On May 10, 2021, Westbrook broke Robertson's all-time triple-double record as a member of the Wizards to become the NBA's leader in this category with his 182nd career triple-double. Westbrook would go on to record 27 more triple-doubles in his career over the next five years with the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets, and the Kings.
Westbrook sits alone at the top of the NBA record books with 209 career triple-doubles, a record that will soon be broken by Nikola Jokic, who currently has 198 career triple-doubles.
In 1,301 career regular-season games over the course of 18 NBA seasons, Westbrook averaged 20.9 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 8.0 assists per game while shooting 43.8 percent from the floor and 30.8 percent from 3-point range. He will forever be remembered as one of the greatest athletes in NBA history and one of the most electrifying players at the point guard position.
As a nine-time NBA All-Star, nine-time All-NBA performer, three-time assists champion, two-time scoring champion, a two-time All-Star Game MVP, the 2016-17 NBA MVP, and a member of the NBA's 75th anniversary team, Westbrook will forever be immortalized down the road in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
What a career for Russ.