Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

I'm pretty sure it was Tim Legler, after the Lakers finally got rid of Russ: "He was killing the Lakers."

And just to make sure he was understood Legler said "I mean he was killing the Lakers..."

Sometimes it's nice to hear a guy on national TV tell everyone our truth.

 

Been watching the Clips a lot lately. They look like a top 3 team in the West now, w/Kawhi and PG13 both healthy. Adding Russ would seem like the LAST thing they'd wanna do, but hey: if they find out the hard way, tough effing darts, eh?

 

on paper, the clips should be the west favorite. will kawhi and PG make it through 4 rounds of playoffs?

they added hyland and gordon at the deadline. adding russ and bev on top of that seems like something to avoid, imo.

 

I don't think he's a difference maker in the playoffs, but I suppose there's a small chance if he has a vendetta against your team, you might see his best aggressiveness attacking the basket against you.

And that would be bad....

If you completed a higher percentage of his layups.

Also, Kevin Durant is secretly smiling right now.

 

yeah, we just sealed up our next loss against the clips, but they may have harmed their chances against elite competition in the playoffs.

 

Maybe he wants out of town? Or Clips won’t give him the role he wants?

 

Wiz or Bulls: two teams mired in mediocrity. Either one should be a good fit for Russ: he can fill up the stat sheet while not making the playoffs. Or he could get eliminated in the first round. His camp sees the lack of LA limelight as a positive for him. Makes sense. With Wiz he can commiserate with Kuz about playing with AD and Lebron; with the Bulls he'd have Caruso.

I look forward to reading about Brick's time with the Lakers in some biography about him many years from now. Gimme an "unauthorized" biography, which may be too much to ask.

A major riff should be how, growing up in Hawthorne and seeing his best friend Khelsey Barrs III drop dead during a playground game, he gets a scholarship to effing UCLA, but like most very good UCLA players these days,leaves Westwood early and has a stellar NBA career, returning to LA to win it all, and it was a nightmare. Here's Pelinka in a recent article:

“I think when we made the Russell Westbrook trade, we did it with the hope of bringing a championship, having a big three,” Pelinka said on Spectrum Sportsnet. “And clearly, we fell short of that. But when something’s not working as a general manager, it’s your job to fix it.

“No one has a perfect track record,” he continued. “But when you feel like a team isn’t performing the way it’s supposed to you gotta rearrange the parts. And that was sort of what we did at the trade deadline. Now that said, Russell Westbrook was a consummate professional and had great games as a Laker. And we enjoyed having him as a Laker.”

I'd like to ask Pelinka privately, "Whattya mean 'enjoyed'?"

 

lol, for some reason i had thought he was going to the clips.

feel like you're right--clips (wisely) aren't guaranteeing him anything, whereas the bulls and wiz basically have starting spots open and are kind of desperate.

i don't think a single person (ok, maybe like, two people on this site) foresaw the russ tenure going as badly as it did here. that includes rob, russ, lebron, AD, jeanie, even opposing front offices and players, imo. it went basically as badly as it could have possibly gone.

as for "enjoyed", i'm guessing rob's saying they liked him--obviously nobody enjoyed his time here in the larger sense. but it's probably a slight push back on the vampire narrative, which i think was also probably taken out of context--you can suck the life out of things without being a major problem. hell, you can suck the life out of things because you're trying your hardest not to be and things still aren't working. some of us tried to articulate this during the great "lockerroom cancer debates" over the past couple years. i don't think russ was actively trying to undermine things. i just think it became an elephant in the room that a) his game didn't fit, b) his game had declined, and c) his contract and role was holding the team back. everybody knew. you couldn't say. it's draining.

 

oh wait, now he IS a clipper. hope it works out as well for them as it did for us.

 

After crushing Westbrook on the Rockets in 2020, remember when everyone thought here, why the hell would LeBron & Co trade for this guy?

History repeats itself

 

Warriors vs Clippers WCF

 

Can you imagine a Clippers vs C Bags or Sund vs C Bags final?
Yuck




I’m hoping for a Bucks vs Warriors finals

 

Start?!

Oh I can't wait to see this.

 

My condolences to the Clippers

 

i feel like this is going to work simply because it seems like it makes no sense.

 

Yeah I have a feeling it’ll work too somehow. And it also helps that he’s not taking up half of their salary cap too

 

Lol how will it work?

It doesn't matter how much of the cap he's taking...the problem with him is that he still think he's that guy!

He will pout if he gets benched in the 4th quarter - and he will still take bad shots that kill your momentum.

He is not a good shooter, not a good defender, and he turns the ball over. He takes BAD shots, and needs the ball in his hands to maximize his talents.

Only problem with having the ball in his hands? He's not as godo as he used to be with the ball - and again, he resorts to taking bad shots or turnign the ball over, ESPECIALLY in crunch time.

Opportunity cost is another issue - whose minutes is he taking in that Clippers guard rotation? Likely someone like BOnes Hyland, who I think at this point is a better FIT for what the Clippers are trying to accomplish. He's a guard that can hit 3's and he can also get his own shot. So can Eric Gordon. So can Norman Powell. Can russ hit 3's? No. He cannot.

The clippers just blew up their team - their demise is actually as predictable as ours was when we first traded for him and anybody that applauds this move is a huge Clippers homer or just an idiot.

 

March 27th: Russ vs Bev. I hope they go back to hating each other.

 

I know this WILL play out somehow, but lemme just say it's a good idea to keep a sense of humor about all this, however it shakes out. If Russ blows the game for them, we'll have a good laff; if he plays a key role in beating us: hey, it is what it is. Same with P-Bev on the...(checks the latest news) Bulls? Wow. Okay.

May the games be good, may Russ and P-Bev not do any more damage to US, and let's try to have fun as we (probably) miss the play-in for the second damned year in a row.