With the first big trade of the summer, Russell Westbrook’s arrival in L.A. has been the subject of conversation ever since it went down.
Not only does it give the franchise new hope for the future, but it gets them a high-energy guy that will always give his maximum effort.
But, as reported by Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report, he wasn’t part of their original plan. Rather, it was Damian Lillard who they were after before they ultimately settled on the deal with Washington.
Per NBA sources, the Lakers went into the offseason with a clear Plan A: unrealistic hopes of landing a Damian Lillard or Bradley Beal. Plan B was Chris Paul (but then the Phoenix Suns advanced to the NBA Finals) and Westbrook. Hield was always Plan C.
It’s not surprising the Purple and Gold were looking at Dame. Over the past few weeks, he was involved in a number of incidents that had many believing he was on his way out.
Whether due to his unavailability or simply a lack of assets to offer, the Lakers obviously gave up on a Lillard trade.
And while talks with Sacramento were ongoing, they pulled the trigger on a 9x veteran All-Star instead, a respectable but questionable decision by Rob Pelinka.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting to hear which players were L.A.’s biggest priorities this offseason. Now that they’ve landed on Russ, we’ll see how “Plan B” works out for them.
