Russell Westbrook earns NBA Western player of the week for 16th time

The recent success of the OKC Thunder results in Russell Westbrook winning Western Conference player of the week of December 18 – 24.

Clearly the OKC Thunder are on a roll having won 11 of their past 14 games and Russell Westbrook has a ton to do with this streak.

The NBA is recognizing his contributions as they named Westbrook the Western Conference Player of the week for games played between December 18th and 24th.

During this period the Thunder played four games winning each. Those included games against the Denver Nuggets, Atlanta Hawks as well as two versus the Utah Jazz.

In those games Russell Westbrook was sublime leading his charges in each case.

Russell Westbrook stats by games in the winning period:

Denver Nuggets, December 18th: 38 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists

Utah Jazz, December 20th: 24 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists

Atlanta Hawks, December 22nd: 30 points, 7 rebounds, 15 assists

Utah Jazz, December 23d:  27 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists

Averages for the week: 29.8 points, 9.0 rebounds, 9.5 assists

Californian’s rule the week:

Joining Westbrook as the Eastern Conference player of the week is fellow Californian (Compton) DeMar DeRozan of the Toronto Raptors. This is DeRozan’s seventh time winning the honor and second this season.

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The Raptors won all three of their games in the period beating the Hornets and 76ers twice including a 22 point comeback win in which DeRozan hit six of his nine shots from behind the arc and scored a career high 45 points.

DeRozan averaged 34.3 points, 4.3 assists, 4.0 rebounds  and was on fire from deep connecting on 13 of his 20 attempts from the perimeter for a blistering  65 percent.

Westbrook finding his role with OK3:

The OKC  Thunder also registered a winning sweep beating all four opponents. This is Westbrook’s 16th time winning the individual accolade.

Notably during these wins Russell Westbrook shot 59.8 percent from the field, shot 50 percent from the perimeter and joined teammate Paul George as a steal master grabbing an average of 2.5 steals in the period.