3.3 million yuan basic salary! From a substitute to a superstar, the whole league is not optimistic about you, but you lead the team to compete for the championship

In the first round of the NBA playoffs, is there any star's performance that impressed you? Antetokounmpo became the Bucks' lone hero. Although the Bucks were swept out by the gentleman, Antetokounmpo definitely tried his best, averaging 33.0 points, 15.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game. There was no bad game. He ranked first in the league in scoring and rebounding. His offense and defense dominance was full, but the Bucks are indeed sunset now. The Timberwolves No. 1 pick Edwards led the team to easily crush the Lakers in the first round, averaging 27 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists per game. Whether Edwards can become a god this year is here. Before eliminating James and Doncic, he led the team to eliminate Durant, Booker, and Jokic last year. The more he faces the big names and high-level stars, Edwards performs better and has strong tough battles. He will face Curry's challenge next.

Celtics Tatum, averaging 31.3 points, 11.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.5 steals in the first round. After winning the championship last year, Tatum has really evolved a lot. He has a super leader style. While taking on all kinds of dirty and tiring jobs on the court, he can also maintain such high output data. Some people have questioned before, who is the leader of the Celtics and now this topic can end. Brown's ball quotient, ball holding and organizational ability are doomed to be unable to surpass Tatum's team status. In addition to the above-mentioned top stars, there is another player in the first round of the playoffs. Although his personal data is not outstanding and his on-field positioning is not absolute core, his overall performance is quite amazing, becoming one of the most critical figures in determining the winning and losing trend of this round of series, that is, Westbrook of the Nuggets.

In this year's playoffs, Westbrook has always played as a substitute, and he averaged not much playing time per game. He averaged 25.7 minutes per game, scoring 13.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.3 steals. Putting aside Westbrook's spiritual attributes, this has always been his biggest advantage. In the first round of the series with the Clippers, Westbrook has more other highlights, first of all, three-pointers. After seven playoff games, Westbrook made 13 of 31 three-pointers, with a shooting percentage of up to 41.9%. The Clippers intend to short Westbrook and let him shoot, but he really made a move with him. These three-pointers Westbrook scored are often very critical, either stopping the bleeding in time or causing the opponent to collapse quickly. With the decline in projection stability in the later stage of his career, Westbrook was able to withstand the pressure and recover strongly, which is enough to prove that his psychological quality is indeed strong enough.

Secondly, Westbrook did a good job in controlling mistakes in the playoffs. During the regular season, he averaged up to 3.6 turnovers per game, ranking 6th in the league. In the first round of the series, Westbrook averaged only 2.0 turnovers per game, almost half of which, and played more reasonably and calmly. This may also be related to the Nuggets' tactical arrangement, allowing Westbrook to assume more of the offensive growth factor, rather than the core organization point of positional warfare. Finally, in several games in this round of series, Westbrook became the key figure in winning. In the last 20 seconds of the fourth quarter of G1, Westbrook made a big heart and overtaken a three-pointer, helping the team drag the game into overtime. In the overtime, the last attack was another fatal steal, which forced Harden to make a mistake in serving, and ended the game with one offense and one defense. G5 Tianwangshan Westbrook dreamed of returning to the peak, and scored 21 points in just 25 minutes. He and Murray became the double explosive point on the outside, leading the team together to win. If one of them felt worse, the Nuggets could not win this Tianwangshan. In the tiebreak battle, Westbrook was completely crazy. Five steals in a single game disrupted the Clippers' offensive rhythm. Among them, 10 points were scored in the second quarter to bring the whole game to a turning point, and the situation was completely controlled by the Nuggets. Although Jokic can still average a triple-double in the first round of the Nuggets playing against the Clippers, and Murray's feel is also recovering, Westbrook can become the brightest star of the Nuggets, proving that he still has the strength of the team's core strength, and his passion has improved the Nuggets team atmosphere by several levels. Before this, many people looked down on Westbrook. Clippers fans hoped that Westbrook would play more, and make more mistakes. As a result, they were unhappy when they really played. At the end of the regular season, the Nuggets lost a key position game due to Westbrook's low-level mistake and lost to the Timberwolves, which also affected the final matchup of the playoffs. The Lakers rose to third in the West and happened to meet the Timberwolves in the first round.

At that time, the Lakers media were sarcastic to thank Westbrook for their sarcasm, which indirectly improved the Lakers' ranking and ushered in an "easy to deal with" opponent in the first round. As a result, Westbrook's Nuggets, who was located, advanced to the second round, and the Lakers were eliminated 4-1 by the Timberwolves. To be honest, after joining the Lakers, Westbrook's personal ability has indeed declined rapidly in recent years, and his net worth has dropped from maximum salary to basic salary. Now his annual contract salary is only 3.3 million US dollars. However, in fact, Westbrook is not as unbearable as we imagined. The Lakers did not cruelly abandon the route. That year, the Lakers' lineup structure itself had a big problem, but in the end it was all blamed on Westbrook. Now Westbrook has finally found the right destination to shine in the Nuggets, and hopes that he can win his first championship this year.

"What makes me proud is that I can show a natural force on the court, no matter how it looks. It may be a mistake, a steal, a dunk, a three-pointer missed, or a three-pointer hit. All of this will be." Westbrook has a clear positioning of his role in the team, and he can clearly recognize his shortcomings and try to avoid it. This is also the difference between him and many stars in his later years in his career. Westbrook can accept such a big gap in recent years, accept his positioning in every team, try to do his best, show full of passion at all times, and bring positive energy to the team. Do you think that in the second round of the playoffs, the Nuggets can eliminate the No. 1 Thunder in the league?