Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

i think they clog the lane because it negates basket cuts. even the highlights where we've found guys, it's required lebron threading needles.

there isn't an offensive mind that can work with what we've got around lebron and AD, imo. and that's amazing. you just can't play with two non-threats on the floor in the modern nba.

 

Do you guys think we should just cut Westbrook? We obviously can't trade him without giving up the 2027th 1st round and he I don't want him to just pout on the bench and be around the team. Also, I don't think we can buy him out to save some money because he probably wants all of it.

 

i think he can be traded, but we'll have to eat longer-term salary for meh players. think hield, kelly olynyk--recent contract mistakes by others.

 

I still don’t understand why Houston would have the leverage to demand a first round pick for a Russ/Wall swap.

They have no intention of playing either of them, wouldn’t it make sense for them to make the swap even if they just get a marginal asset like a second round pick?

If we can get them to bite on that, I’d do it.

Never in my tenure as a Laker fan has their been a player that I’ve wanted to have off the team THIS badly.

 

i think just for optics. houston can't be seen as the weak party in the negotiation.

again, we could heavily protect the pick such that it reads as a 1st but is really a 2nd (top-20 protected then turns into an unprotected second the next year).

 

I don't think see trade him now. I think the egos and reputations of those involved will wait to the summer and reduce his role as much as we have to between now and then. After last night and the press conference, I move him to the bench and let him lead that group. Keep him out of any 4th q lineups. If that fails, send him home until the off season. If you do either of those headline decisions with him, a Gordon trade makes more sense.

 

Also putting the article here. I can't read it all but title and caption are enough IMO

 

Has westcrook been traded yet

 

For months the Lakers star has been steadfast that his team’s woes could be pinned on injuries and inconsistent lineups, all while projecting confidence that a future existed for these Lakers in which they could still make a run at a championship.

Fifty-five games into the season, James acknowledged what anyone else watching this team can plainly see: That it’s not true.

Oh, he tried to dance around it. He invoked the search for consistent rotations. He talked about health. He pointed to the stability the league’s top teams have enjoyed while the Lakers have blindly fumbled for an identity.

But after nearly 12 minutes of questions on Tuesday night, James cracked and laid the facts bare.

He was asked what the Lakers 131-116 loss to the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks told him about the state of the Lakers, just 16 months removed from a title of their own.

“It tells me we ain’t on their level,” James said. “I mean, I could have told you that before the game.”

Less than 48 hours before the trade deadline, James was echoing a sentiment that has spread throughout an increasingly dispirited Lakers organization.

Sources told The Athletic that inside the locker room, players see and feel the same problems as everyone else, perhaps never more clearly than after a non-competitive loss to the champs. They understand as well as anyone that the personnel on this joyless 26-29 team simply isn’t working.

It’s a harsh reality for a team that last summer cashed in virtually all of its assets to acquire former Most Valuable Player Russell Westbrook and, in the name of winning the Lakers’ 18th NBA championship, assembled a team of past-their-prime role players. James made his feelings even more clear when he was asked if the Lakers still could reach the Bucks’ level.

“Do I think we can reach the level where Milwaukee is right now?” he repeated. “Um, no. Is that what you wanted to hear? No.”

James has been marvelous once again this season, defying conventional wisdom about what’s possible for a 37-year-old player. He scored 27 points against the Bucks and it could scarcely have mattered less.

Everything the Lakers did last summer, the overhaul of a contending roster, the addition of Westbrook, the strategy of a big three… It has all failed.

Earlier on Tuesday, head coach Frank Vogel, whose job has been closely scrutinized by Lakers decision-makers at key pressure points throughout the season, cautioned that he would not read too much into a single regular season game, but on an optimistic note added: “They are still the champs, so you do measure where you’re at as a team against that.”

Might want to rethink that.

Asked postgame about the comparison, Vogel chortled.

“It wasn’t good,” he said, adding, “Our energy as a group isn’t good right now.”

For the second straight game the Lakers started the night with an embarrassing defensive effort, giving up 78 points to the Bucks in the first half. Vogel, who utilized a new starting lineup for the 27th time this season, scrambled to make halftime adjustments. But where the Lakers were able to make a run and overcome a 21-point hole three nights earlier against the lowly Knicks, the Bucks are no such pushover.

The Lakers climbed within 10 points in the fourth quarter, prompting a done-for-the-night LeBron to leap to his feet and sprint into the game. It was another comeback staged without the aid of Westbrook, who watched the final 15 minutes of the game from the bench after a 4-for-11 shooting night in which he looked tentative, indecisive and overmatched.

The night ended with all members of the Lakers big three on the sideline and a playful Westbrook patting James on the head and tapping Davis as encouragement. The two stars barely acknowledged the third member of their trio.

“I told them I wish I could help them,” Westbrook said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the game to be able to help them and that’s why I’ve, why I came here to be able to help them out. So, unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do that for them, but that’s not my call.”

Westbrook was booed for the second game in a row, but appeared unperturbed by the slight from fellow Angelenos, saying, “It’s a sign of respect.”

But his recent benchings paint a clear picture of the Lakers’ issues and underscore just how miserable this season has become and how few options remain. It is impossible for anyone, including many within the organization, to see a path back to contention without major changes. The Lakers would almost certainly be in for a major shakeup prior to Thursday’s deadline if not for the fact that their most tradeable players — Kendrick Nunn and Talen Horton-Tucker — are not seen as attractive targets by other teams and the only first-round pick they have to trade can’t be used until 2027.

The Lakers have backed themselves into a corner, most urgently with Westbrook. The trade — championed, if not orchestrated, by James and Davis — can already be counted among the worst management decisions in NBA history.

Sources have indicated that the Lakers no longer believe they can win at a high level with Westbrook alongside James and Davis, but prior to Tuesday the line of thinking was that the Lakers would be unwilling to wave the white flag and admit their summer blockbuster was a failure. Instead, they would prefer to wait until the offseason, when they could also include a 2029 pick in a potential deal for another max-contract player looking for a new home.

But the tone after Tuesday’s loss suggested the Lakers are in need of more immediate action. Could things be so dire that the Lakers would be better off including that ’27 pick in a swap now — say for Houston’s John Wall? — even if it means a lesser return? Desperation got the Lakers into this mess and it might take desperation to get them out.

Either way, whether it is by Thursday’s deadline or in the summer, the Lakers know they need to find their way out of the Russell Westbrook business.

One Lakers staffer who had reservations about the trade when it was made in July recently told The Athletic, “I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

The frustrating thing is that the circumstances didn’t have to be this dire.

This is not only a team that is barely 16 months removed from winning a title, but also one that less than a year ago was chasing the top seed in the Western Conference before Hawks forward Solomon Hill fell into James’ leg. The resulting high ankle sprain ended James’ MVP candidacy and forced him to miss 20 games. But even after having to navigate the play-in, the Lakers took a 2-1 lead against eventual conference-champion Phoenix despite, as James said on Tuesday, “We weren’t healthy for that series.” That moment stalled out , of course, when Davis strained his groin in Game 4, but that shows just how close the margins were for the Lakers a year ago.

This season? What was a game of inches is now a game of miles.

Rob Pelinka, VP of basketball operations, discarded the remaining core of the title team for Westbrook — leaving almost no escape routes — opted not to counter Chicago’s offer for Alex Caruso and declined to engage with the oft-maligned point guard Dennis Schröder, who, according to league sources, was up for returning to the Lakers as Westbrook’s backup before eventually signing with Boston for the mid-level exception with the C Bags. (Then there’s the deal the Lakers gave to Kendrick Nunn, who has not yet played this season due to a bone bruise in his right knee.)

The albatross of Westbrook’s contract left the Lakers with few options other than to scour free agency for minimum contract players like Carmelo Anthony and Malik Monk, who were hits, and Kent Bazemore, Trevor Ariza, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard, who have not been.

Along the way, the Lakers mined relative gems like Avery Bradley, Austin Reaves and Stanley Johnson. But those pebbles aren’t tipping the scales against a boulder-like Westbrook.

Nobody expects Pelinka to untangle all of that before Thursday’s deadline and he is an uncomfortable spot. By now, it should be his job that is drawing scrutiny. But there is a risk of being too aggressive and wasting assets to salvage a season that can’t be saved. You can’t make a mistake like trading Ivica Zubacfor Mike Muscala, as Pelinka and Magic Johnson did in 2019.

In the end, Pelinka may not have the flexibility to do anything to address the growing dissatisfaction with the course of this season — no matter how much pressure he feels, and should feel, to fix the team he assembled.

The Lakers have 27 games left, come what may.

“I don’t think we’ve given up on this,” said Davis. “I know we haven’t. … We can turn this around, but it’s going to take a lot of work.

“To do it, it’s going to take us as a team collectively to do so. We’ve got to buy in. We’ve just got to (have) everyone go out there and play for each other. Play hard. Play selfless. And try to turn this around before it gets really bad.”

But Davis was swimming upstream against the current of James’ words.

Before it gets really bad?

James told the truth: It already is.

 

Thank you for the article was just about to post to see if someone had a subscription.

 

Great reading. Seems most people are seeing the same I and most of us are.

Hope we can turn it around and still leverage on Lebron's longevity

 

Hmmm... interesting timing for someone who doesn't miss games.

 

Lol. It isn't that interesting

And dude is just hurt.

He isn't getting moved.

We're not that fortunate.

 

Yeah missing tonight’s game is definitely just a precaution to avoid a real injury that might kill any potential deals

 

yeah, i highly doubt he's hurt to the point where he'd have to sit