How many Finals MVPs did Jerry West win?

This article breaks down Jerry West's Finals MVP wins, the years, the opponents, and the context of each championship run.

What years did Jerry West win Finals MVP?

The article lists every NBA Finals series in which Jerry West was named Finals MVP, with team, opponent, and key stats.

What made Jerry West's Finals MVP performances special?

The article highlights Jerry West's defining moments, advanced stats, and narrative impact during each Finals MVP run.

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Russell Westbrook: Glory and Idol— When Explosiveness Became a Creed

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NBA

7 views08/23/2026, 23:07 ET

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On June 26, 2017, in New York, when Adam Silver spoke the name "Russell Westbrook," a small city in Oklahoma lit up deep into the night. This was Westbrook's only regular-season MVP trophy, yet it carried the full dignity of a team that everyone had predicted would fall apart.

The way people remember that year often reduces to a single number: the triple-double average. 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, 10.4 assists—the first player to do it across an entire regular season since Oscar Robertson in 1961-62, a gap of fifty-five years. But what shook the league more than the stat was the context in which it happened. The previous summer, Kevin Durant had left the Thunder for the Golden State Warriors. In the media's telling, Oklahoma City became a "hollow shell," and Westbrook was written off as the lonely leftover. He said nothing. He turned every game into a statement.

Westbrook's sense of glory was never merely a pile of trophies; it was a kind of bodily domination. His explosiveness belongs to the very top of NBA history: that first step off the dribble releases like a compressed spring, and his pull-up after a left-side drive bends the laws of physics. This spectacle made him an idol for a generation of young players—not because he was flawless, but because he was "all in." While others in the load-management era calculated every minute, he fought for every loose ball and every possession, as if the body were only a vessel for the will.

The meaning of an idol lies in projection. Kids imitate his low center of gravity, his hunched ball protection, his fierce eyes tearing through a defense. He showed a simple but rare belief: after being abandoned, glory does not arrive on its own—but it can be snatched back, one jump at a time. The 2017 MVP was the grandest coronation of that belief. It told the world that a superstar is not just stacked talent, but the ability to turn "underrated" into "unstoppable."

What makes Westbrook's glory distinct is its texture. He was never the smooth, efficient scorer that modern analytics adore; he was a force of nature who imposed his will through sheer athletic fury. That roughness is precisely why fans bonded with him. In an era of polished highlight reels, his game felt human and urgent. He reminded everyone that greatness is not always graceful—sometimes it is gritted teeth and a body thrown toward the rim as if the basket owed him something.

There is also a quiet lesson in how he wore the crown. He did not gloat over Durant's departure; he simply outworked the doubt. The MVP speech was short, grateful, and pointed at his team and his city. That restraint, after a season of roaring dunks, is part of the idol's power: the fire on the court and the calm off it are the same man. Young fans learned that intensity and humility can share one chest.

Westbrook later posted another triple-double season with the Washington Wizards in 2020-21, proving 2017 was no firework but a repeatable shape of will. From the day the Seattle SuperSonics drafted the UCLA product fourth overall in 2008, he has grown from Oklahoma City's lone warrior into a totem for fans who believe "explosiveness is justice." Glory ages, but the fire an idol lights stays with everyone he ever inspired, and that is the glory that truly lasts beyond any single season.

Perhaps the purest proof of his idol status is how he is imitated without instruction. On playgrounds from Los Angeles to Lagos, children do not copy a move so much as a posture—the chin up, the shoulders squared, the refusal to shrink. That untaught mimicry is the highest tribute a player can earn. It means he gave the game not just a statistic but a stance, and stances outlive seasons.