In leopard-print shoes, at Oklahoma City's Eugene Field Elementary school last week, Russell Westbrook sat on a short red bench with a classroom's worth of kids gathered around. He was holding a book, mouthing the words and following along as a young boy and girl read each page.

"Y'all read better than I do!" he joked, eliciting adorable laughter.

Westbrook was opening the third Russell's Reading Room, a program from his Why Not? Foundation to help promote children's literacy in Oklahoma. And the book selected for him to read to complete the small ceremony was called "I Like Myself."

I'm glad I'm me.

There's no one else I'd rather be.

I like my eyes, my ears, my nose.

I like my fingers and my toes.

I like me wild.

I like me tame.

I like me different, and the same.

As much dissection, investigation and evaluation that still goes on around the Thunder's enigmatic point guard, one thing has always been abundantly clear: Russell Westbrook is comfortable being Russell Westbrook. Just watch this commercial.

Westbrook's style both on and off the floor have always been both somehow straightforward and nuanced. He's a maniacal fireball of fury, but also a strikingly intelligent person and player. He dresses like a 6-year-old playing in his dad's closet, but he somehow pulls it all off. He's impressively steadfast in being terse and awkward with the media.

When the schoolkids asked him rehearsed questions like "What's your favorite book?" and "How many hours have you read?" Westbrook couldn't help being himself.

"Not as much as I want to," he said honestly, which seems like kind of the wrong answer, given the setting.

But Westbrook isn't one to filter.

He'll tell a reporter he doesn't like him, because he was asked. He'll bristle at any question that he feels is unfair, rolling his eyes and blinking through irritation as he requests an explanation. He's an unapologetic person and player who can startle with his willingness to go without your affirmation.

He keeps a close circle. There no sweeping entourage of friends following him everywhere. His allegiances off the court rest with his mom, his dad, his brother and now, his fiancee. (He wore No. 4 in high school because it represented the number of people in his family.)

Theirs are the endorsements he seeks.

In Utah on Friday, as Thunder players filed out from the tunnel back onto the court following halftime, fans mostly wearing OKC apparel gathered around to high-five the team. Players spilled out in succession, celebrity autopilot driving them to fist-bump and high-five their way through the thicket of fans, and back to the floor. Westbrook emerged last. Fans leaned into his path, and screamed his name louder than any other player's. He stared straight ahead, at nothing in particular, arms at his sides. Three dozen or so Thunder fans: left hanging.

The fodder for those who would paint Westbrook as a jerk comes day after day. He's not exactly a social butterfly. He's not desperate for your approval. He's not going to beg you to like him. He is what he is, always, at all times. Take it or leave it.

When he was a junior at Leuzinger High School in Los Angles, his height -- 5-foot-10 and unable to dunk -- made him a small-college prospect at best.

"I was definitely faster than a lot of people growing up," Westbrook says. "Not able to jump as high, but I was definitely faster and pretty quick when I was younger."

The summer before his senior season, though, he unexpectedly grew five inches, immediately turning into a 6-3 NBA guard prototype. He dunked for the first time in his life as a high school senior.

Even in his seventh season in the NBA there remains unique electricity to Westbrook's rim attacks. Each dunk has a this-could-be-the-last-one-I-ever-get kind of look, perhaps because he once knew well what it was like not to see the rim at eye level.

Westbrook wasn't a sure-thing five-star recruit, and only registered on Ben Howland's radar after Jordan Farmar departed for the NBA, leaving UCLA in need of a guard. Westbrook backed up Darren Collison as a freshman, and then averaged 12.7 points as a sophomore, winning Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year. He was incredibly raw, but had a special something about him, and found himself pick No. 4 overall by the Thunder organization.

Nobody knew what position he was really supposed to play in the NBA. But the Thunder lavished minutes on Westbrook from day one, installing him alongside Kevin Durant and Jeff Green as the core of the franchise. He led the league in turnovers and shot under 40 percent. He still averaged 15.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.3 assists. Nobody really knew what to make of him.

Six years later, he's a leading candidate for league MVP.

For the last two months, Westbrook has been forced into the role so many have assumed, from afar, that he has long secretly coveted. With Durant officially shelved for the rest of the season, the Thunder are Westbrook's to guide. He's performed magnificently, posting nine triple-doubles and averaging 31.0 points, 8.8 rebounds and 10.2 assists for the last two months running, as the Thunder have gone 18-8, clawing into the West's 8-seed.

But if you ask Scott Brooks, or any teammate, the raw numbers don't tell the story. The development that draws the raves is his leap in maturity and leadership, stepping out of the shadows as a brooding loner whose competitive spirit sometimes got the best of him. Maybe it's because of a humbling 2013 in which the previously indestructible Westbrook went through three knee surgeries, missing the postseason and then 36 games the following season. Or maybe it's just natural maturation.

The reason really matters not. Westbrook is leading more than ever. Against the Suns on Sunday, he scored 15 straight in the first half, shooting 19 times. In the second half, he pulled off the accelerator, if only slightly, to allow his team to breathe and role players to step up. He can suffocate a game with his bullheadedness, but his better understanding of balancing has elevated him to another place.

That's what's always been so challenging for Westbrook -- he can get whatever he wants, whenever he wants. But it's the whenever part that has troubled him. With Durant out, he's afforded the luxury to care about it less, even though he probably battles nightly temptation to shoot whenever he touches the ball. Even though he has the league's highest usage rate, by far, he has shown an increased regard for the team's offensive structure.

The book on Westbrook has always been about ego and selfishness, but those who know him best insist that's incorrect, and that in fact Westbrook is driven by a solitary motivation -- winning. It's not that he wants the glory; it's that he thinks he can be the one to deliver his team the glory. And because of that obsession, his vision can get clouded and best intentions misdirected.

An example: Against the Jazz, he scored 20 of the Thunder's 23 points, shooting 6-of-12 while his team went 1-of-9. Most any other player, we'd celebrate that bravado as heroism in the moment, a star stepping up when his team needed him. Except that kind of quarter is what keeps Westbrook divisive. Westbrook didn't have a single assist after dishing out six in the first quarter, and the Thunder lost. So was that 20-point fourth quarter good, or bad? What you think of Westbrook is what answers that question for you.

He's forever polarizing, because he doesn't care enough not to be. He cares about the things experts have always said stars should care about: his team, his family, winning. Since he entered the league in 2008, people have been trying to define Westbrook, trying to figure out exactly what, and who, he is. Is he a ball hog? Is he helping? Is he hurting? Is he holding back Durant? Is he the Thunder's true alpha? Is he a jerk? Is he crazy? Is he a point guard?

And I don't care in any way what someone may think or say.

I may be called a silly nut, or crazy cuckoo bird -- so what?

I'm having too much fun, you see,

for anything to bother me!

He's just Russell Westbrook. And he likes being him.