With practically everybody having turned against Russell Westbrook, things have become pretty awkward for the Lakers as they navigate the 2022 offseason.
For now, Kyrie Irving remains L.A.’s top priority, but there is a sense that Russ will still be a Laker by next season’s opening tip-off in October.
As Lakers fans pray and plead for Westbrook to be traded, head coach Darvin Ham wants people to give him a chance to flourish under his system. Here’s what he said in a recent appearance on the Vince Carter show.
“My thing is let’s give him a chance to see how he does in a Darvin Ham system with Darvin Ham’s principles before we just start dismissing him.”
"My thing is let's give him a chance to see how he does in a Darvin Ham system with Darvin Ham's principles before we just start dismissing him."
Darvin Ham wants to give Russell Westbrook a legit shot under him with the Lakers 👀
(via @ESPNNBA)pic.twitter.com/UIAqot5Ulg
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) July 19, 2022
Ham has really made it a point to support Westbrook this summer. In the hours and days after being hired, he sang his praises and insisted that he was happy to have him on the squad.
He also said that Russ is part of the reason he was so excited to take the job in the first place.
“I’m thrilled to coach Russ. They try to dump on Russ, I’m like that was one of the things that got me excited about this job. He and I have had a great rapport since I’ve taken over the job man. Just text messages, phone calls, dinners. I locked in, I cornered his ass outside the elevator over at the Encore. He and I had a great conversation then. We all know what comes along with this businessman. People throwing your name in trade rumors. I’ve been in the league since 96, man. I don’t know anybody that’s been on any team that hasn’t had their name thrown in a trade rumor or been traded. As a coach, they’ll be saying they ready to fire me, the media be saying they ready to fire me in a year, year and a half. Well, you can’t help but hear the noise sometimes. You just got to stay solid, do what you do and you’ll win in the end every time. I witnessed it with him.”
We don’t yet know how everything will play out, but the “big three” have talked and re-committed to making things work, and the narrative is starting to change.
If Ham is really the guy Lakers fans hope he is, the 2022-23 campaign could be wildly different from the disaster we saw this past season.
