Earlier this week, UCLA men's basketball alumnus Russell Westbrook retired from the NBA after reaching incredible heights over his 18-season career that he spent with seven franchises. Since the Bruins legend called it a career, many professionals from across the sports world have reacted to the news. However, back in October on the "7PM in Brooklyn" podcast, Westbrook's former teammate Carmelo Anthony precisely predicted how the UCLA great would ultimately retire from the league.
“For somebody to tell you ‘You ain’t this, you can’t do this, you not part of what we doing,' you step aside and you like, 'Damn, am I really worthy of even being a part of this game anymore? Do I still want to put the grind and the hustle and the dedication into this, knowing that I’m being f*cked over by the game?' That’s how I was thinking at that point," Anthony said last year. "Whereas Russ, in that situation, he could say, ‘Man, f*ck this game. I’m done with this. Y’all wanna carry it like that? I’m walking away from the game.’ We would take our hat off to Russ. We would feel bad about that, though, because we know why you’re walking away from the game. “As a player, if you know you’re not ready to walk away from the game, and you feel like you’ve been pushed away from the game, you want to prove yourself. Russ probably is in a situation where in his mind, ‘I got another two years in this league and I’m out of here. I still want to play basketball and do what I do for the next two years. Why are you forcing me out of this when I’ve been doing this for eighteen years?’”
There's no doubt that Westbrook will be joining Anthony very soon in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, very likely on the first ballot as well.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Carmelo Anthony precisely predicted Westbrook's retirement last year