Inside NBA star Russell Westbrook’s plan to clean our skies

When Russell Westbrook was a high-school kid in Hawthorne, at the edge of South Los Angeles, putting in the work to keep up a 3.9 GPA while nursing dreams of playing elite college hoops, he took to asking himself a simple question about his aspirations. Why not? As in, why not set super lofty goals? Why not treat them as perfectly achievable?

These days, Westbrook is in his 18th NBA season, a point guard for the Sacramento Kings and a revered league vet known for his explosive style of play. And all the while he’s been building his legendary NBA résumé (among other honorifics, he’s recently become the all-time scoring leader among point guards), Westbrook has also relentlessly applied his why not? mantra off the court, where he champions the potential of emerging green technologies to lift up underserved communities like the neighborhoods he grew up in—and even transform his whole hometown.

So why not solve L.A.’s infamous smog problem in the next two years? The metro area has more unhealthy air days, on average, than any other in the United States, and the main culprit is tailpipe exhaust. To address it, Westbrook has partnered with the nonprofit Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) on a campaign to secure funding and launch workforce training for the electrification of the city’s municipal and commercial fleets, along with the installation of other clean-energy infrastructure. The goal is cleaner air by the time the city hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics, setting an example for other world cities while all eyes are on L.A.

Matt Petersen, LACI’s president and CEO, says he admires how “completely and fully committed” Westbrook is to a vision for a greener city. And while Westbrook won Olympic gold with Team USA in 2012, that’s not why the campaign hits close to home: Semitrucks hauling goods from the Port of Los Angeles currently spew exhaust right through his old neighborhoods in and around South L.A.

“This isn’t just about the Games,” Westbrook told attendees of a clean-tech summit last year. “It’s about creating opportunities, jobs, investment, and a future where our communities benefit.”

Pushing for more green jobs citywide is an extension of a mission Westbrook has carried out for more than a decade, helping open pathways to careers in tech for Black and brown kids. Since 2012, his Russell Westbrook Why Not? Foundation has partnered with L.A. nonprofits on efforts to distribute laptops in schools, launch job-training programs in coding and engineering, and more. Among its most significant commitments is Westbrook Academy, a charter middle and high school in South L.A. operated in partnership with the L.A. Promise Fund. Westbrook kicked off the 2024 academic year by cutting the ribbon on a new campus with state-of-the-art classrooms and science labs. He’s most proud of the school’s STEM program, he says, a chance to show kids “how important science, tech, health, sustainability can be to help the future—not just in L.A. but across the world.”

Westbrook, who turned down a nonathletic scholarship to Stanford to play basketball at UCLA, knows that a love of STEM and a love of sports aren’t mutually exclusive. When Los Angeles hosted the NBA All-Star game in February, the Why Not? Foundation launched tie-in events to highlight job opportunities for young people in clean tech, partnering with workforce-development organizations. Similar events are planned for this summer’s World Cup matches, another chance to reach young fans.

“Sports are the way that they can connect,” Westbrook says. Then he shifts their minds from the field and the court to futures they haven’t yet imagined.