When the Los Angeles Lakers completed a trade for veteran guard Patrick Beverley, the first place a lot of Lakers fans’ minds went was Russell Westbrook.
Westbrook and Beverley have not been fans of one another for years, and both players have had not-so-nice things to say about each other.
Now, it looks like Beverley is ready to put the beef behind him. His new superstar teammate LeBron James recently posted a tweet predicting a comeback season for Westbrook. Beverley co-signed the prediction.
Same it’s on🦍 https://t.co/jR5ZFaMYMV
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) August 25, 2022
The question now remains if one simple tweet can put years of history behind them. After all, it all began in the 2013 NBA Playoffs when Westbrook suffered a season-ending knee injury after Beverley collided with him.
It was seen by many as a dirty play.
The two had several on-court confrontations in the following years, but the next major moment in the beef was Westbrook’s famous postgame interview.
“Pat Bev trick y’all, man, like he playing defense,” he said. “He don’t guard nobody, man. He just running around, doing nothing.”
Later, Beverley made it clear that he took that personally. During a podcast appearance in 2022, he claimed that Westbrook’s words about him impacted his career.
“He damaged my career,” he said. “Coaching staffs and players, fans, they looked at me way different.”
The icing on the cake came in the form of two tweets from Beverley during Westbrook’s horrendous 2021-22 NBA season. On two different occasions, he took clear shots at Westbrook.
I remember when somebody said all I do is run around and I trick y’all 😂 well my boy is The Real Magician this year.
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) February 10, 2022
Playoffs every year. 2 western conference finals with 2 different Teams👀👀👀 individual stats or team stats? I thought it was a team sport?? https://t.co/wlPhFB9alQ
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) March 17, 2022
Now, the two are projected to be teammates this season. Perhaps the two really have buried the hatchet, but there also seems to be a massive risk of them creating a divided locker room in L.A.
One other alternative that some have already considered is that the Lakers made this move in anticipation of finally being able to deal Westbrook away. The trade, which saw the Lakers send away Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson, frees up a roster spot for the Lakers.
This is nothing more than conjecture, but maybe the Lakers made one move now in order to facilitate a trade sometime in the future.
Only time will tell.
