Russell Westbrook deletes all Instagram posts except one message from Nipsey Hussle

Earlier this week, Russell Westbrook purged his Instagram profile of any posts referencing the Lakers, Wizards or Rockets, leaving the only NBA-related media of himself remaining pictures or videos of his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder. A day or so later, he deleted every single post from his account, but on Thursday, he added one new video as his cryptic-but-public account management saga continues.

The post? A picture of himself in his Lakers uniform, captioned “1 of 1,” and featuring audio of the late rapper Nipsey Hussle talking about how he doesn’t care about what others think about him, and how he’d always be unapologetically himself:

A few of his former Lakers teammates showed their support for Westbrook in the comments:

And for those that can’t listen to the video, here is a transcription of Hussle’s message:

“Man, I learned when I was younger, like, you can’t put your expectations of me on me. I’m me. You feel me? And you’re not ever going to make me feel bad for it. You’re not going to make me react to how you’re reacting to me. I don’t care. I’m me. And if part of who I am is disrespectful or crossing the line of like basic things, I’m going to check myself... But we all are individuals, so if you think my balance or my ratio, ‘I’m too this, I’m too that, and I ain’t got enough of this, or enough of that,’ that’s all love. Just keep it to yourself.”

It’s not hard to imagine why these words would resonate with Westbrook after all the criticism he has faced this year. And this appears to be a clear message to those same critics that he’s not planning to change who he is, either. Whether he’ll continue to be himself with the Lakers or elsewhere, though, will continue to be an open question over the weeks to come.

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