Column About Russell Westbrook Disappears, Comes Back With New Ending

The Oklahoman's Berry Tramel received the brunt of Russell Westbrook's ire when the point guard got surly on Friday night—Tramel is the one who Westbrook was addressing when he said, "I don't like you"—and this morning he published a column about the whole kerfuffle. Apparent technical issues made the column impossible to access for a lot of readers, though, and once it reappeared, it was outfitted with a new ending.

Here's how Tramel's piece originally ended:

Familiarity breeds contempt. I get that. But Friday night, in a game the Thunder desperately needed, Westbrook had a game for the ages. And he was mad at the world. Not just me. Mad at everybody. And when he no-answers The Oklahoman and the Thunder website and Channel 5 and The Sports Animal, he's showing his complete disregard for fans. We're not there to get our jollies. We're there because we all have customers intensely interested in the Thunder. The people who buy tickets and the people who watch the games on television so that the Thunder can sell commercials and pay the bills.

When Russell Westbrook says "good execution" to every question, what he's really saying to the fans is, "I don't like you."

But in the current version of Tramel's column, that last line is nowhere to be found. Who knows why it was removed, but it did stick out as unnecessarily arch in what was otherwise a fairly sensible and level-headed take on the whole situation. The line's also disingenuous; there's no shortage of ways for fans to gather information about their favorite teams and players these days, and if a guy doesn't want to give boilerplate quotes after the game, nobody's missing out on too much.