It’s no secret that the Los Angeles Lakers are looking to move off of point guard Russell Westbrook in any fashion possible after his disastrous fit with the squad last season.
While speaking with GQ, controlling owner of the Lakers Jeanie Buss discussed how excited she is to watch a healthy Anthony Davis, LeBron James and Kendrick Nunn next year. Not only did she conveniently leave out her excitement for Westbrook, but she failed to mention his name even once during the entire interview.
“We changed coaches, so that’s a new voice,” said Buss. “And we are continuing to, hopefully, stay injury-free. We want to see Anthony Davis stay on the floor and be healthy the whole season. And when you have Anthony and LeBron, there’s a lot of great things that can happen. But you have to have a supporting cast of players that can fill roles and also stay injury free. We have Kendrick Nunn coming back after missing last season, and a lot of young players that…I can name names, but until we see how they play there really isn’t…we have to give Darvin Ham all of the time and resources he needs to put the team together to see how they move forward.”
It’s quite a different tune than this time last year, when Buss and the rest of Lakers nation had the utmost optimism that Westbrook was the final piece to the Lakers’ championship puzzle.
Instead, what they got was a player that had all the athletic ability in the world, but gave up costly offensive and defensive possessions in crunch time. His lack of effort on defense, poor outside shooting and untimely turnovers had Lakers fans wanting to break their television sets in frustration at times.
The man was heavily criticized across social media and several blooper reels of Westbrook throwing up bricks and having costly turnovers at the end of games were made.
For some players, this a career bloopers reel, for Russell Westbrook, it all happened with the Lakers before Christmas. My goodness. pic.twitter.com/tK95PMHoag
— Fred J. Robledo 👨🏻💻 (@SGVNSports) December 26, 2021
The man did average 18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game in his lone season with the Lakers. But most considered him a net negative when on the floor due to the points he gave up on the other end and his turnovers.
What made things worse was that the point guard failed to recognize his mistakes and instead created a toxic environment in the locker room and media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyvpa6b63L8
“My game is not predicated on shots or if I turn the ball over,” Westbrook said, without taking any accountability for his nine turnovers in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves last season. “Like, I miss some shots, that’s part of the game. I’m allowed to miss shots. I can do that. Like any other player, I can do that. I can turn the ball over, too. I can do that. That’s all a part of the game.”
The Lakers are beginning to run out of options to unload Westbrook, as it was recently reported that the Nets plan to hold onto Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.
Brooklyn has made clear to interested teams that they plan to keep Kyrie Irving, per @ShamsCharania pic.twitter.com/SI6apEOUqe
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) August 22, 2022
Next up, Los Angeles will likely try to go after both Myles Turner and Buddy Hield of the Indiana Pacers. They likely could get this deal done by attaching two first-round picks to Westbrook, but would it be worth mortgaging their future for two more years of LeBron James?
