Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

oh god this again. i mean, it's true. but talking about it hasn't helped at all. and who are you talking to, here? you haven't played a lick of team defense all season long.

 

That's what really aggravates me with this group. We've heard that over and over again and they never corrected it.

 

Westbrook, you aren't a very good basketball player.

Maybe that's a problem, too?

 

I don’t. Would you ever hear Kobe say something like this? Absolutely not. That tells me Westbrook doesn’t care or isn’t impacted by these losses at all.

 

always hated westbrook before he became a laker and he's sure given me a reason to continue hating him

of course he doesn't care about losing. just as long as he can pad his stats

 

Getting easier and easier not to root for him. Hope that expiring k gets us something decent in the off-season. He should not be here next year.

I DARE him not to opt in to next year’s contract. I’d respect that, but it will never happen.

 

His shooting/shot selection is so bad it’s almost like his missed shots should be counted as turnovers.

 

last night it was more the result than the selection, imo (haven't seen second half yet). in the first half, he attempted some wide open threes, iirc, and he sort of HAD TO. they didn't even pretend to walk towards him. and he missed. so then he started forcing the issue a bit, which again is now your only option. he got to the rim but got blocked several times. he's just lost a huge chunk of his athleticism, and he can't salvage it in other ways.

he's cooked.

 

Hopefully this means Russ and his team will do something on their end to help facilitate a move.

 

oh yuck a dead cap hit. we're just getting out from under deng. imagine 3X that.

one thing they didn't discuss is some sort of stretch buyout situation that's more like kemba's from last year. we buy him out for 30, he signs a two-year MLE with <insert dumb team here> to make up the loss. he gets a PO on the second year in case he's still deluded enough to think he'll rehab his image and earn another payday.

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2021/08/10/report-kemba-walker-surrendered-20m-in-thunder-buyout/

if we stretch his 30-35 million over two years (instead of 3--not sure if that's allowed, but i don't see why not), then the cap hit is 15-17 next year instead of 47. this opens up full MLE this summer, plus BAE, and still leaves a max slot open should something happen and jokic or beal look for new homes in 2023.

anyway, my first plan would be to troll for smaller bad contracts like dallas did for porzingis. does rob go after hield again?

hield/brogdon for russ works and fully resets indy almost overnight. but brogdon, in theory, still has value. also, pritchard hates us.

someone also mentioned hayward and rozier from charlotte, a similar kind of deal.

ny already told us to kick rocks, else i'd put them here, too.

 

i played most of it while i ate lunch.

see my post above for some extensions, but essentially, they discussed stretch-waiving russ or attaching multiple picks to move him.

but one thing they didn't really talk much about is how few teams there are with enough salary they're willing to move to make it happen.

tbh, his peak value will be as an expiring at next year's deadline, but it sounds like that ship has sailed. my extension plan from earlier has also sailed. although, tbh, i'm not sure extending him at 20 per for three years is worse than stretch-waiving him at 15 per for three years. at least you can use his salary in trade if you extend him.

 

I'd rather just John Wall him and get that last year over with than stretch him.

 

This is a lovely take ahah

Hornets have LaMelo, no sense at all to do that trade. And they were very interesting the first half of the season, they badly need a center and have a bunch of assets to be a good team consistently.
In the summer the Knicks might reconsider, we should try. Indy could also happen.
We really need THT to have a great end of season. I would shutdown Russ and unleash him. Put Russ working 8h a day in shooting from now until October.
At the very least we shouldn't give a crap about PR and bench him. We can't trade him this season so at least try something new

Stretching is a terrible option, hope we don't do it. It's just one year. I would prefer trading for Wall (even with the pick) or even keep him.

 

Thought of Hayward and Brogdon.

Just don't think those teams pull the trigger.

And honestly, after looking at Brogdon and his injury history, we just can't chance it with an aging Bron and an AD coming off another injury.

 

I think I'd rather tough it out another year than deal with a dead cap hit. Stretching him would just be prolonging the pain.

 

well, that's the only reason he'd be available. why not just gamble it all?! also, my stance is well-established on this issue--i'm willing to gamble on superior talent. i mean, we'll get 82 games of absolute crap from russ this year. i'd rather get 40 good games from brogdon.

but what if the stretch could only be two years? again, i think it's possible, though i may be reading the stretch rule wrong. if we could get his buyout number down a bit and reduce the stretch to two years, the short-term only takes a minor hit and the long-term is totally safe.

 

Two years is definitely easier to swallow especially if we strike out on some kind of deal. I'd also rather gamble on Brogdon than going through anther year with a clear negative on the team in Russ.