Sometimes we “experts” in the world of sports journalism get one wrong. Way wrong.

Russell Westbrook is a recent example.

He is the second-best player for the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team with Kevin Durant and a huge upside. Some of us same experts now believe OKC could finish the season with a better record than the Lakers. And a lot of it because of Westbrook.

And I never saw that coming.

The Russell Westbrook I remember best was the one I saw play for two season at UCLA. A great athlete. A good guy. A smart kid. The sort of prototypical John Wooden/Ben Howland UCLA guy. Well-coached. Good attitude.

But he had a really ugly shot (a lot of lefties do), and I wondered where he would play, in the NBA. At UCLA, he was a 6-foot-3 off-guard, but that wouldn’t work in the NBA because of his shooting issues. And as a point guard with the Bruins, he was mediocre.

Seared into my memory was a nationally televised game at West Virginia late in the 2006-07 season, when Westbrook was a freshman. He had to start at the point because Darren Collison was nicked up, and Westbrook was awful. Awful. He personally cost UCLA the game in a 70-65 defeat. He shot 1-for-11 and had only four assists (and three turnovers), scoring five points in 32 minutes.

That game made me decide he would never be a point guard. And even when he was the No. 4 pick in the 2008 NBA draft, coming out after his sophomore season, I wasn’t sure it would work out. I was still back at the “can he really run a team because he can’t play the 2 in The League?” thing.

Well, turns out he can run a team. Like crazy.

Westbrook is one of those guys who is so athletic but also so smart and dedicated that he is actually a better pro than he was a collegian, as his statistical history shows. He made 71 percent of his free throws as a sophomore at UCLA; he is a career 80 percent free-throw shooter in the pros, and is over 90 percent so far this year — and he gets to the line all the time. (He leads the league, actually, in FTs made and attempted.)

He hasn’t missed a game in his NBA career. His scoring average is climbing straight up (from 15.3 to 16.1 and now at 22.2 ppg five games into his third season). He still can’t make a three, but he isn’t taking many, and his field-goal percentage is low (.409 for his career), but I no believe he is one of those guys who will work at his shot so hard that he will move that shooting number north as he matures.

This guy is good. Really good. A penetrator, a finisher, an excellent defender,  a great chemistry guy. He and Kevin Durant and the Thunder could be Miami’s primary competition within a couple of years. That team is that promising.

And Westbrook doesn’t even turn 22 until next week. He has a decade of high-level play ahead of him, barring injury.

Sometimes, we get these things wrong. But usually it’s the other way around. The collegians we think will be NBA stars often turn out to be busts. It is rare when the guys who, as collegians, we have trouble projecting into the NBA … turn out to be stars.

But Russell Westbrook has. He is proving it with the Thunder. He proved it at the world championships over the summer when he took the starting point job away from Derrick Rose.

Westbrook apparently is a good guy, and we like to see good guys succeed. Even if they make us look foolish in the process.