Patrick Beverley
I had a lot of questions when making this list. Would I be able to get it to ten? Would I have enough content for each entry?
A question I didn’t have, is who would be first on this list.
Without a doubt, Patrick Beverley is the biggest villain in Thunder history. His reckless and unwarranted play forever changed the Thunder.
As a reminder, during the first round of the 2013 playoffs, Beverley ran at Westbrook who was in the process of signaling to the ref he wanted to call a timeout. Beverley crashed into Westbrook’s knee causing him to tear his meniscus. Even though he was able to finish the game, Westbrook was later ruled out for the playoffs, the first time Westbrook missed a game in his NBA career. Yes, the Thunder were able to hang on and eliminate Beverley’s Houston Rockets in round one, but the damage was already done. Without Westbrook, the Thunder lacked the scoring to get by the Grizzlies, and ultimately lost in five games.
It seems crazy to say, the 2013 Thunder was arguably the best version of the team. It was the only squad to finish with the best record in the conference, and also lead the league with a 9.2 point differential. Although the Thunder did lose both regular season match-ups with the eventual champion Miami Heat, there was a strong belief that this team was as good, if not better that Miami. All that was thrown away because of a reckless play. Even if Beverley was able to steal the ball before Westbrook called for time, that’s never a call you get.
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This is something I’ve discussed before, but Beverley’s dirty play had just as big, if not a bigger impact the following season. Although the Thunder medical staff made some questionable decisions on how to handle Westbrook’s surgery, he ultimately ended up missing 36 games the following season with the same injury.
The Thunder finished three games behind the San Antonio Spurs for the best record in the NBA. Furthermore, OKC won all four of it’s regular season match-ups against the Spurs. If the Thunder win three of the 36 games Westbrook missed, OKC finishes with the one seed and has home court in the West Finals.
Going even further down the rabbit hole, if the Thunder play the Trail Blazers in round two instead of the Clippers, Serge Ibaka doesn’t injure his calf defending a Chirs Paul layup. Then, not only do the Thunder now have home court against the Spurs, the also have a healthy Serge Ibaka.
For those who forgot, Ibaka missed the first two games of the series, two Spurs blowout wins, before being cleared to play game three. While making a substantial impact, he was clearly not 100 percent, which ultimately cost the Thunder another shot at the finals.
This one play started a string of Westbrook/Beverley altercations throughout the past few years. If these two go head-to-head, it’s all but guaranteed something big will go down.
All in all, it’s totally reasonable to think Patrick Beverley ruined two of the Thunder’s prime years to win a title. He is without second thought, the biggest villain in Thunder history. But as a reward for reading everything, here is a video of Steven Adams knocking the living daylight out of Beverley during the 2017 playoffs.
Quick shout out to the T.I staff for helping me make this list. Couldn’t have done it without you guys.