There is no doubt that some players aren’t good fits with one another on the court, due to a certain overlap in their skill set. If those two players are on the same team, then one solution that a coach could enact is to stagger those players’ minutes and let those two players thrive on the court with less interference from the other.
It seems as though this was the solution enacted by Darvin Ham when it came to the pairing of Russell Westbrook and LeBron James. A report by Sam Amick and Jovan Buha of The Athletic revealed the words of Darvin Ham, who suggested that Westbrook was moved to the bench in part because he and LeBron James both thrive with the ball in their hands. Ham did, however, note that the door is still open for Russell Westbrook to start for the Lakers.
Westbrook didn’t address the decision to bring him off the bench at shoot-around, then didn’t speak after the game because of his injury. But Ham spent nearly 15 minutes explaining the Lakers’ rationale behind the move.
“Some guys play better off the ball, some guys play better with the ball in their hands, and through no fault of their own, that’s just how they’re built, you know?” Ham said. “You’re not gonna have LeBron James play without the ball in his hands for, you know, 80, 85 percent of his minutes that he’s on the floor, you know? At some point, you’ve got to allow him to orchestrate. Same thing with Russ. And so to create some type of balance, we wanted to look at this, the setup of this type of rotation and see if it works for us. The door’s not closed on Russ starting, and the door’s not closed on (whether) this works, you know. We got to explore it even further.”
There is no doubt that this sort of move could pay off for the Los Angeles Lakers. Having two elite ball handlers over 48 minutes of play is definitely good for the Lakers. Though we did not see this experiment for long as Russell Westbrook exited his recent preseason game with the Lakers due to his hamstring injury, Westbrook terrorizing opposing bench units sounds really good on paper.
Russell Westbrook Could Have A Bounceback Year As A Sixth Man
Though Russell Westbrook could likely have a starting role on certain teams, it is quite possible that his best fit on the Los Angeles Lakers is as a sixth man. Coming off the bench and going against lesser opposition, or playing against tired starters could be great for Westbrook in terms of his production and efficiency.
Hopefully, we do see Russell Westbrook have a good season. There is no doubt that this year gives him an opportunity to prove all the haters wrong, and perhaps we’ll see Russell Westbrook show that he can be a winning impactful player on a dangerous team this season.
