Westbrook's got the yams

(Fair Use)

Question:  What does a cartoon sailor have in common with Russell Westbrook?  Answer:  They’ve both got the yams.

We’re not talking beta carotene here, we’re talking fundamental identities.  Popeye used to go around singing, “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam…”  Westbrook prefers the mantra “Why not?” - but it all amounts to the same thing.

According to Kendrick Lamar, a Russell Westbrook fan and fellow “native of inner-city Los Angeles,” the yams is “the power of life – the primal I am, a pure declaration of being.”  Although statisticians try to define Westbrook in terms of triple-doubles, these are weak attempts at analyzing an “unmeasurable vital force.”

Westbrook boils it down to this:   ...when I get on the court, there’s no friends… I only got one buddy, and that’s the basketball.  My job is to get to the ball before the next guy.  You gotta want it, man.  You gotta want it more than the other person.

Resources

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/magazine/the-unreasonable-genius-of-russell-westbrook.html?_r=0