Tracy McGrady stated that Westbrook had the most impressive individual performance in an NBA game he ever witnessed. McGrady said this after witnessing the iconic 83-point game Kobe achieved, Adebayo’s 83, and Booker’s 71. But is he really wrong to think that?
On April 2, 2019, Russell Westbrook played a game against the Lakers that would put him into the league of statistical anomalies. Westbrook finished with 20 points, 20 rebounds and 21 assists, becoming only the second player in NBA history at the time to record at least 20 in all three categories. The only other player was basically the record book himself, Wilt Chamberlain, who had 22 points, 25 rebounds and 21 assists all the way back in 1968.
But the big question that needs to be answered is how accurate Tracy McGrady’s take is that this was the greatest individual performance he had ever seen. McGrady has lived through Kobe Bryant’s 81, Devin Booker’s 70 and now Bam Adebayo’s ridiculous 83-point game. So how could Westbrook’s game still stand above all of those? The question that remains is how impressive this performance actually was.
In the entirety of NBA history, only one player before Westbrook had achieved a statistical feat like this, and that was Wilt Chamberlain.
Twenty assists alone means Westbrook directly created at least another 40 points for teammates, and likely more once three-pointers are included. Add his own 20 points and Westbrook had his fingerprints on well over 60 points of Oklahoma City’s offense.
And not only that.
Westbrook was a 6-foot-3 guard fighting for boards in a league filled with players standing six or seven inches taller than him.
Westbrook did all three jobs at once: scoring, running the offense and cleaning the glass.
All of that is impressive, but is it really more impressive than Kobe’s 81?
Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in 2006, and the era matters when talking about how difficult that was.
The 1961-62 NBA season, when Wilt scored 100, saw teams attempt around 107.7 field goals per game. The NBA during Kobe’s era was considerably slower and more half-court oriented. Fewer possessions meant fewer opportunities to score, which makes 81 points in that environment even harder to understand.
Spacing was also much tighter. Teams were not launching 40 or 50 threes every night, and defenders could load the paint without worrying about five shooters spread around the floor.
Kobe still went 28-for-46 from the field, 7-for-13 from three and 18-for-20 from the free-throw line. Los Angeles was also losing by 14 at halftime before Bryant essentially took over the entire game..
The Lakers needed every point.
Devin Booker’s famous game came in 2017 when he scored 70 points against Boston. Booker became only the sixth player in NBA history at the time to reach 70.
Bam Adebayo somehow took things even further in 2026 with 83 points, passing Kobe for the second-highest scoring game in NBA history. Bam went 20-for-43 from the field and lived at the line, making 36 free throws. The performance came with some stat-padding accusations because Miami continued feeding him during a blowout, but 83 points is still 83 points.
Those games probably beat Westbrook if the argument is simply about scoring, but it goes deeper than that.
Russell Westbrook recorded the performance only two days after his friend and fellow Los Angeles native Nipsey Hussle was murdered outside Marathon Clothing.
Westbrook had eaten Thanksgiving dinner with Nipsey, along with visiting the opening of the store he was murdered at.
The death clearly meant a lot to him
After securing the final rebound, Westbrook yelled, “That’s for Nipsey!” After the game, Westbrook explained that the performance was not for himself.
That emotional context is what separates the game for McGrady.
Kobe had the most incredible scoring night relative to his era, Bam scored more points than Kobe, and Booker had one of the great shooting explosions of his generation. All while Westbrook was playing for something beyond the box score.
Kobe’s 81 may still be the more impressive pure scoring performance. Bam’s 83 is statistically ridiculous, and Booker joining the 70-point club at such a young age was unreal.
But Westbrook’s game had emotional weight to it.
Twenty points, 20 rebounds and 21 assists had only been done once before in NBA history at the time, and Westbrook accomplished it while dealing with the death of someone who meant something to him.
Maybe Tracy McGrady is wrong if we are judging purely on basketball difficulty.
But once you add the rarity, the all-around production and the circumstances surrounding the game, the argument suddenly does not sound nearly as crazy.
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