A very short time ago, the Los Angeles Lakers were seemingly stuck between a rock and a hard place after trading for Russell Westbrook during the summer of 2021. Despite being expected to contend for the NBA championship, they missed the play-in tournament during the 2021-22 season, and Westbrook became the scapegoat.
He was an easy scapegoat due to his ultra-aggressive style of basketball and his personality, and it got to the point where the criticism seemed to affect him emotionally. However, there have been a few people who have pointed out that Westbrook wasn’t necessarily to blame for the Lakers’ former woes, at least not in a personal sense.
Iman Shumpert, a former teammate of LeBron James, explained why Westbrook never quite fit in (h/t Lakers Daily).
“Bro, he didn’t throw himself into this to get 20 percent touches and now he gotta be super efficient,” Shumpert said. “His whole knock has been he’s not efficient his whole career. He don’t play on efficiency, he play on heart.
“And now you gotta deal with Bron and them. They needed to play at a different pace. Bron needs to control the pace, push when he wants to. Russ needs y’all to have as many broken plays. A rebound happen, and y’all gotta deal with him comin’ full speed and you gotta look for Russ over your shoulder. You gotta deal with him doin’ that. That’s Russ’ game. That’s where he becomes a nightmare for you.”
On the Lakers, Westbrook needed to adjust his game and learn how to be effective without the ball, both in transition and in the halfcourt offense. But he never managed to do so, although he often made an effort to adjust. Instead, he needed to be on the ball, while James needed to be off the ball more. This inflexibility, coupled with Westbrook’s turnover-prone nature and poor outside shooting, did L.A. in.
Ultimately, the team acquired D’Angelo Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt for Westbrook, two little-used players in Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson and moderate draft capital. That trade turned out to be the biggest reason it turned things around and became a legitimate championship contender by March.
