Russell Westbrook has been at the wrong end of critiques from all over the NBA fandom this season, especially from fans of the Los Angeles Lakers, the team he currently plays for. The hate and the criticism have gone so far that Westbrook has spoken about how he won’t bring his family to games anymore and his wife Nina has revealed that they have received death threats and been otherwise harassed.
However, the one thing that would surely shut his haters up doesn’t seem to be happening as Westbrook’s play continues to suffer on the court. Against the Washington Wizards on Friday night, Russ started the game 1-9 from the field including some layups that were missed. This drew the ire of analyst Shannon Sharpe, who has spoken about this before, and he didn’t mince his words on Twitter while calling Russ out.
Westbrook is 1-9 with 3-4 point blank missed layups. He wonders how/why he got that nickname. He’s tired of ppl shaming his last name, but not ashamed enough to play better. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) March 12, 2022
“Westbrook is 1-9 with 3-4 point blank missed layups. He wonders how/why he got that nickname. He’s tired of ppl shaming his last name, but not ashamed enough to play better.”
He was an abysmal 2-11 off the field in the game, playing 31 minutes and managing just 5 points. The Lakers got the win but that had very little to do with Westbrook, as the team was carried by LeBron James who put in another unreal 50-point performance to save the day.
It’s becoming clearer by the day that Westbrook is simply not a good fit on the Lakers and not much is likely to change while he is still on the team. They’ve got a couple of wins recently that they can hopefully turn into some momentum but the Lakers will probably not be able to do much in the playoffs if this level of play from their 3rd star continues. As for the criticism and the hate, it’s unlikely that the performance against the Wizards will have helped in lessening it.
