Russell Westbrook has been the subject of matter for the Lakers practically this entire season and the last and everyone wants to know whether he will be off the team by Thursday’s trade deadline. His name has been brought up in potential trades with the Utah Jazz and Miami Heat. Is trading him away along with those two first-round picks worth it if you can get back a Mike Conley,Jarred Vanderbilt, and Malik Beasley? I would say so yes, Malik still has potential to become a star at the shooting guard position in the right situation and he is shooting over 30% percent from 3-point range; and also gives the Lakers the spot up shooting they need to put around LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Mike Conley carries a lower usage rate than Russell Westbrook who has had to come off the bench this season in order for the Lakers offense to run more fluidly; which was a complete disaster last season under former Laker head coach Frank Vogel who was dealt a hand last season including ball dominant players like Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook whom didn’t represent the personnel Frank was used to coaching like in his days in Indiana.
I am of the thinking that the Lakers need to go back to acquiring the similar pieces they had around LeBron James and Anthony Davis which propelled them to the championship the year 2020 in The Bubble. They gave away two key role players in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma in order to bring in more star power with Rusell Westbrook and that has turned out to be a failure in Los Angeles. Michael Jordan did not win 6 championships in 10 years in the 90’s because he had the most star power he just always had the best overall team top to bottom and obviously arguably the best coach in NBA history in Phil Jackson also known as The Zen Master who was indeed the master at managing egos in the locker room coaching the likes of Michael Jordan himself,Scottie Pippen,Dennis Rodman,Kobe Bryant,Shaquille O’Neal 5 of the top 50 players in NBA history to multiple championships.
Lakers GM Rob Pelinka was the biggest fan of the Russell Westbrook trade I remember; he spoke of Russell Westbrook as if his arrival was going to be return of the glory days for the storied franchise but I didn’t buy too much into it. I saw Russell Westbrook fail time and time again in Oklahoma City with Kevin Durant and also in his second go round with Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. He failed mightily trying to prove to the world that he could be the best player on a championship team.
He went to Houston and had Mike D’Antoni try every offensive strategy in the book in order to accommodate the offense to his liking with 4 shooters on the floor at all times and they still got taken to school by LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the second round in The Bubble 2020. Last year Anthony Davis misses half the season giving Westbrook ample opportunity to turn back the clock and ends up averaging an astonishing 22 points per game for the entire season which isn’t bad but that’s not the type of production the Lakers were expecting from Westbrook when they brought him over.
I guess by now you could probably derive I am definitely not on board with keeping Russell Westbrook past this Thursday. The Lakers still have enough time to turn around this season even with just 27-28 games left on the schedule. The Utah Jazz are falling down the Western Conference standings and no matter what the Sacramento Kings’s record might imply they look like a team that could choke the rest of the way being how inconsistent rookie Keegan Murray has been all season; speaking of him he just finishing scoring 30 points last night on 8-12 from the 3 point line, looking more and more like former Celtic Antoine Walker by the day.
The Western Conference is up for grabs this season; I mean unless Kevin Durant magically joins the Golden State Warriors or Phoenix Suns there is no reason LeBron James and Anthony Davis can’t make a deep run out West. As for Russell Westbrook? The experiment was worthwhile but I don’t believe Westbrook is focused on winning a championship, the Spurs or Hornets could let him audition himself for a contract this coming summer the rest of the way.
D-NBA 