Russell Westbrook with the Stade Montois jersey.

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Stephen Gosling / NBAE / Getty Images / Getty Images via AFP

  • Russel Westbrook showed up to a pre-season match wearing a Mont-de-Marsan jersey.

  • The new playmaker for the Wizards, best player of the 2017 season, is one of the biggest “fashionistas” in the League.

  • 20 Minutes

    set out on the trail of the link between the NBA player and the Pro D2 rugby club.

Emotion among rugby fans upon awakening.

Russel Westbrook, the former Rockets brick collector just transferred to Washington, shows up to his last pre-season NBA game wearing a Stade Montois collector's jersey, branded “French rugby champion 1963”.

And with him, a mission for the

20 Minutes

investigation cell

, obviously.

We start with the classic: the phone call to the club, which vegetates today in the depths of the Pro D2.

Obviously, hardly anyone knew Westbrook the night before, but the photo is already posted on the club's Facebook page.

"Russell Westbrook, exports Stade Montois Rugby to the NBA!"

The NBA star attended the match of his Washington Wizards teammates in the colors of the SMR… With our champion jersey of France in 1963!

A champion's jersey for a champion !!!

".

Russell Westbrook wearing the @SMR_Rugby jersey!


Incredible 😂



Cc @ BureauOvale0 pic.twitter.com/isD7ZyCmuX

- First Team (@ FirstTeam101) December 18, 2020

A jersey produced in less than 100 copies

Everyone is asking the same question as us: how the hell did this jersey land on the shoulders of one of the biggest stars in the NBA.

There is a stir in the archives.

We are talking about a rare pearl, reissued in 2013 in around thirty copies for Father's Day, almost all sold in stores in Mont-de-Marsan.

The mystery thickens.

To have got his hands on one of these 30 jerseys, Russel necessarily has family in the Southwest.

Perhaps a somewhat gruff grandmother specializing in Landes tourtière who sends a personalized gift to her American grandson every Christmas?

Or the guy came to spend his vacation in the area one summer and drove through downtown incognito?

No one has a clue.

We then turned to the manufacturer, Sport d'Époque, specializing in re-editions of vintage, rugby and football shirts.

Benoît D'Argenlieu, the boss, on the decks: “Oh yes, I saw the story.

This jersey comes from us.

And the best part is that it was made in Nay, just next to Pau, it is really a hyperlocal product, which we produced in less than 100 copies ”.

Russel Westbrook must therefore feel the Béarn under his armpits.

But we do not know more about the connection between "Russ" and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

“Easy,” replies Benoît, “we have a distributor in the United States, I am looking for information and I am yours”.

The solution lay in Los Angeles

End of the suspense on the strokes of 5 pm.

The brand that distributes the vintage Mont-de-Marsan jersey opened a pop-up store last summer in Los Angeles.

Big com operation to bring in stars, as we know how to do in California, and Westbrook which is one of the preferential targets.

You should know that the guy is known to be the greatest "fashionista" in the League.

He confessed in a paper from our American colleagues "to have as much fun in front of a fashion show" as on a floor, and the Internet often laughs at his sartorial eclecticism.

In short, it was while zipping merchandise in an LA boutique that Westbrook fell head over heels for this Mont-de-Marsan jersey.

169 euros at the withers, probably a little more in dollars.

For a consecration in front of cameras around the world.

A little less sexy than the story of the Landes grandmother, but we take it anyway.

Especially since the best player of the 2017 season has long warned: he never wears the same outfit twice on match days.

It was therefore a "one shot" that should be celebrated at its true value.

Sport

NBA: When the star Russell Westbrook wears the jersey of ... Mont-de-Marsan

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