Earlier this week, Russell Westbrook showed his support of Taylor Swift not only by attending her concert in Los Angeles, but by unabashedly rocking out to "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" on Instagram.
As it turns out, Swift has unintentionally been supporting Westbrook for years, too, boosting his performance with the release of her singles.
A study from Kenny Ducey of Sports Illustrated published Thursday shows that Swift singles have coincided with a major bump in Westbrook's performance. Similar to J.R. Smith playing out of his mind after Lil Wayne drops an album, Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder have been terrific the game after Swift releases a new single.
| Westbrook | Record | FG% | PPG | RPG | APG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Career avg. with Swift | 9-1 | 52.9% | 23.5 | 4.5 | 6.2 |
| Career avg. overall | 309–198 | 43.2% | 21.1 | 5.2 | 7.1 |
Westbrook sees a slight dip in rebounding and assists, but his scoring average rises noticeably and his field goal percentage shoots through the roof, while the Thunder are nearly unbeatable - they've outscored opponents by 137 points over those 10 games.
In mathematical terms, none of this would be considered statistically significant, still far too small a sample to be representative or predictive enough to bet heavily on Westbrook's next post-Swift outing. Still, Swift has released an album in every even-numbered year since 2006, and Thunder fans would be forgiven for dreaming on a new EP right around the playoffs in 2016.
