A lot has gone wrong for the Los Angeles Lakers since they won the championship in 2020. They have had Anthony Davis deal with some significant injury issues which meant that, for the longest time, he was a shell of himself, until this season and their front office has seemingly made one wrong decision after another.
In the eyes of many, the biggest one of them would be trading for Russell Westbrook from the Washington Wizards in 2021. Russ has certainly made a good impression this season, but there is no denying, that the Lakers could have brought in someone who was a better fit alongside Davis and LeBron James. A name that has been floated around often is Buddy Hield and as per NBA insider Eric Pincus, a delay in paperwork led to the Lakers trading for Westbrook over him.
via Callin Shots with Seth Partnow (starts at 35:00 mark):
“Now, maybe another opportunity comes along that pulls you away from this player. And certainly the Lakers have a track record of that with a negotiation with Buddy Hield on the finish line, where they told the Kings apparently that ‘we have a deal, we just need Trezz (Montrezl Harrell) to opt in,’ and this kind of feeds into what you’re talking about, where they had the delay, they couldn’t just say yes because they had to wait for a clerical thing for a player to just send paperwork to the league, and in that window, they ended up doing the Russ deal.”
So, during the time they were waiting for Montrezl Harrell to opt in and send the papers to the NBA, they changed their mind and went in a different direction. You do wonder what led to them going from having the deal for Hield being all but done, to pursuing Russ. Whatever the case, the team might have been in a much better position right now if they hadn’t changed course.
The Lakers Wanted To Create A Legendary Big 3 When They Traded For Russell Westbrook
ESPN’s Jorge Sedano recently stated that he heard from people in multiple camps that the reason the Lakers traded for Russ, is that they wanted to create a legendary Big 3 like the one the Miami Heat had. The Lakers franchise has always been about acquiring stars but they used to get ones that fit in well and Russ certainly didn’t.
The Lakers are now looking to make another trade with the Wizards, as we have had multiple reports on them wanting Bradley Beal. He would certainly be a good fit and an NBA insider believes they could manipulate the market to land him.
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