Los Angeles Lakers guard Russell Westbrook was brutally honest when discussing the support he received from LeBron James and Anthony Davis during the 2021-22 season.
When @DanWoikeSports mentions that LeBron and AD said many times throughout the year, "Let Russ be Russ," Russell Westbrook immediately responds: "Yeah, but that wasn't true. Let's be honest."
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) April 11, 2022
Westbrook shouldered a lot of the blame for the Lakers’ struggles during the 2021-22 campaign, and he never really found a way to fit in alongside James and Davis.
Westbrook averaged his fewest points per game since his second season in the NBA, and he was unable to produce at the level the Lakers had hoped for when they acquired him this past offseason.
During the 2021-22 season, Westbrook averaged 18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game this season while shooting 44.4 percent from the field and 29.8 percent from beyond the arc.
While James and Davis may have been vocal in their support for Westbrook, the former MVP clearly feels like things didn’t exactly go in his favor in Los Angeles.
Westbrook is a dynamic guard when he’s at his best, but he was forced to play off the ball more this season with James in the lineup. Westbrook’s poor shooting and lack of consistency from the rest of the Lakers’ roster led to the team struggling to find a lineup that worked throughout the entire 2021-22 season.
Now that the Lakers won’t be in the playoffs, it is time that the team turns its focus to the offseason and finding a way to compete for a title in the 2022-23 season. It remains to be seen if that plan will include Westbrook as the team’s point guard, or if he will be with another team next season.
