OKC’s All-Star Russell Westbrook Suffers an Ankle Sprain Injury

Russell Westbrook in 2017
Russell Westbrook in 2017. Photo by Austin Mcafee/CSM/REX/Shutterstock

After starting the season with 0-4 record, Oklahoma City Thunder finally managed to find their rhythm and notch five straight wins after that. Unfortunately, they might lose it again, since their All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook suffered an ankle sprain in the third quarter of OKC’s 122-116 win over New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night and had to leave the game early.

Westbrook was trying to get an offensive rebound next to Pelicans’ forward Anthony Davis and ended up landing on Davis’ foot and rolling his ankle.

Thunder said that they still don’t know how severe Westbrook’s injury is, but the team did reveal that X-rays on the 29-year-old’s left ankle came back negative.

Russ has a pretty high pain tolerance, so I knew it was something that was serious,” – said his teammate Paul George after the game. “I was just hoping it wasn’t his knee. I thought I saw him holding his knee. I think we can all say it’s unfortunate, we can all say as bad as it was, we’re happy it wasn’t the knee and that it was just an ankle sprain.

If Russell Westbrook’s injury turns out to be grade 1 sprain, he is likely to be out for a few weeks until he fully recovers. If it’s grade 2 sprain, then he is looking towards a month of downtime. Westbrook already missed the first two games of the season, after having knee surgery in the offseason.

Westbrook is averaging 25.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game so far in the season.

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