Russell Westbrook has been in the spotlight for a while, but it is shining brighter on him now, more so than at any other point previously. After a disappointing debut season with the Los Angeles Lakers, trade rumors regarding the star guard were spreading like wildfire, and as if all the talk surrounding that wasn’t enough, another big news came in recently that shocked many within the NBA.
That big news, of course, was Russ parting ways with his longtime agent Thad Foucher. In what was an incredibly surprising move, Foucher released an explanation for the split in which he basically accused Westbrook of lacking self-awareness. Foucher claimed that the best option moving forward for the star guard was to stay in Los Angeles, but it seems like Westbrook had other ideas. He apparently had Foucher begging Sean Marks, the Nets GM, to get him to Brooklyn, and it seems that all of this had a part to play in their relationship falling apart.
NBA insider Jovan Buha was recently on The Athletic NBA Show, where he was asked about the split and why Foucher went to the lengths of putting out that statement to clearly indicate that he was no longer representing Westbrook.
via The Athletic NBA Show (starts at the 14:25 mark):
“It was really shocking to me and I spoke to people around the organization who were shocked by, not necessarily them splitting, it had maybe been building toward that, I mean obviously this doesn’t just happen overnight that guys split like that. The manner in which it happened… I cannot remember an agent publically splitting with a player in this manner and like releasing a 5-paragraph statement basically saying the player lacks self-awareness and I’m trying to advise him for what I think is best for his career and he wants something else. I’ve never seen that before.”
“Part of it was he wanted to kind of get out, it was gonna obviously come out that they’re splitting and I think he wanted to tell his side of the story first… Thad set the narrative, he came out and he told his side of the story. I’m sure on both sides that there has to be some hard feelings here because from everything I had heard through the years, they had a very close player-agent relationship.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise that people within the Lakers organization were shocked at the manner in which the two sides had split, as an agent releasing a statement like that is something no one has ever seen before. Foucher seemed to be fed up with the whole situation, and he wanted to set the narrative first as to why the two sides split.
What makes the whole situation just that much worse is that when you have been together for as long as these two had been, it takes something big to split them up and Foucher clearly felt he was at breaking point. Russ is rumored to now join Excel Sports Management, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with this entire situation if they are able to strike a deal to work together.
