Russell Westbrook has more eyes on him this coming season than arguably any other NBA player does. The Los Angeles Lakers guard could very well get back to his triple-double best and prove everyone wrong, but it will take some doing. And after his first season in the Lakers failed to qualify for the playoffs, the conversation around whether he is wanted in Los Angeles has been incessant.
The summer saw many reports that the team wanted to move on from him. The Lakers reportedly made trade offers for stars involving Westbrook going the other ways as well, but in the end, the former MVP remains in Los Angeles. To his credit, Russ has said that he doesn’t care if he is wanted or not, he’ll be doing his job. But that sounds like a less-than-ideal situation.
How it works out with the Lakers remains to be seen, but the one thing Westbrook is adamant about is that he is far from done in the NBA itself. And with this being the last year of his contract, there are many possibilities for his future. But not everyone seems to think so.
Shannon Sharpe Says Russell Westbrook Knows NBA Teams Don’t Want Him
The media or the fans haven’t been kind to Westbrook throughout this process, and that doesn’t seem to have changed. Addressing Westbrook’s comments on Undisputed, analyst Shannon Sharpe went so far as to claim that no NBA teams want Westbrook.
https://twitter.com/undisputed/status/1574772736911613954
“Normally, when the boss doesn’t want you on the job, he gets your a** up out of there… Russell Westbrook is the exact same player he’s always been The only thing that was different last year and when he was in OKC after KD left, when he went to Houston and when he went to the Wizards was expectations.
“He knows it. Russ knows they want him out of there. But Rob Pelinka laid it out crystal clear. Ain’t nobody want him… Russ can’t go anywhere in the NBA that wants him, and he knows it.”
There may be some truth to this statement in that Russell Westbrook’s current contract isn’t exactly ideal. But to suggest that no team in the NBA would want him at all is going quite far. Even in the year of his decline, Russ averaged over 18 points along with 7 assists and 7 rebounds per game. Any NBA team could use that, and it will be interesting to see if these numbers go up now that Russ is in one of the final big contract years of his career.
