Rumors continue to swirl around Russell Westbrook’s future, and we have seen all sorts of twists and turns in this saga. There were some indications that he might stay as the Lakers were unwilling to part with draft picks, but an exit in some form or the other seems inevitable now.
There have been rumblings of a trade to the San Antonio Spurs, after which the team would buy him out and after that, there was talk of him being traded to the Indiana Pacers, but that trade is ‘currently dead’ as per recent reports. There were also reports that the Mavericks would be interested in Westbrook but as per NBA insider Tim MacMahon, he got a very definitive no when he asked his connections within the team about it.
MacMahon was on The Hoop Collective podcast where Brian Windhorst was talking about potential destinations for Westbrook as per league executives. When Windhorst suggested that the Mavs could be a fit because they lost Jalen Brunson, MacMahon quickly shot down the suggestion.
(starts at the 48:57 mark)
“So you guys told me that you heard that and I checked in. I got a very quick ‘Hell no’.” When he was later asked about would they take him as a free agent, the answer remained the same, “Even then, I was told ‘Hell no’, the idea of Russ being on the roster next to the most ball-dominant player in the NBA Luka Doncic…”
You’d have thought there would be multiple teams interested in Westbrook if he became a free agent, but that might not actually be the case. The Mavericks, in this instance, have no intention of getting him on board, and perhaps you can point to them being an exception because of the Luka Doncic factor. If Russ couldn’t play with LeBron James, then it seems highly unlikely that he’d be able to fit in with Luka, so the Mavs not being interested would be understandable.
Still, regardless of how we look at this situation, it is a spectacular fall from grace for the former MVP, and Tim Bontemps had also claimed on this podcast that Russ might not play in the NBA again if he leaves the Lakers. That is a stretch, but one potential landing spot has already been removed from the equation.
