There is no secret that the Los Angeles Lakers tried to move Russell Westbrook this offseason, to try to make themselves into a contending team once again. Despite their best attempts, it is clear that the franchise has not managed to find a suitable trade, and Russell Westbrook is obviously still on the roster.
In fact, a recent report by Dave McMenamin revealed that the Los Angeles Lakers originally wanted to trade Russell Westbrook before they signed guard Dennis Schroder in free agency, adding that the Lakers changed course and signed Schroder early because of his performance in the FIBA EuroBasket tournament.
L.A. did bake in some insurance by signing Dennis Schroder to a veteran minimum deal in mid-September after expressing interest in the former Laker all summer. The Lakers originally planned to have found a trade partner for Westbrook before signing Schroder, sources said. But after the point guard’s strong showing for Germany in the FIBA EuroBasket tournament generated interest around the league, L.A. signed him before another team could.
There is no doubt that this is a big revelation. It is clear that the Los Angeles Lakers were trying to get better-fitting players for the team this summer than Russell Westbrook, but unfortunately, their search came up short. Perhaps we’ll see them find a good move that makes the team a contender in the future.
Russell Westbrook Could Have A Bounceback Year With The Los Angeles Lakers
While Russell Westbrook had a poor year with the Los Angeles Lakers, he could potentially be better this season due to a change in role, as the Lakers are experimenting with the point guard potentially being the sixth man for the team. Darvin Ham noted that the move was to help both him and LeBron James find success.
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.”
Hopefully, we see the Los Angeles Lakers find success when staggering LeBron James’ and Russell Westbrook’s minutes. It is easy to see why Darvin Ham made his decision, and perhaps that means Russell Westbrook will play better when getting to be the primary ball handler with the bench unit.
The Los Angeles Lakers are a team that has the talent to potentially be a dangerous squad in the Western Conference when it comes to the postseason. They definitely need to develop chemistry and figure out how to play together, but if that happens, they could definitely make some noise in the West.
