Even with Russell Westbrook officially settling on the final $47 million year of his current contract, it seems the Los Angeles Lakers haven’t fully reconciled the idea of ​​him being on their roster next season. But they’re probably the closest they’ve ever come to fully accepting this depressing reality.
In the wake of Westbrook’s opt-in on Tuesday, Jovan Buha of the athlete reports that “although a Westbrook trade is still a possibility, the Lakers are currently planning to start next season with him on the roster.”
Buha writes that there is one scenario that could change that calculus — and that in a vacuum, the Lakers would still be happy to trade with Westbrook — but it just doesn’t sound like his exodus is a particularly likely outcome at this point (emphasis added). from me ):
That could change if the Lakers find a team willing to take on Westbrook’s expiring contract without also asking for a future first-round pick (2027 or 2029), which hasn’t been the case so far. The Lakers would still prefer to trade Westbrook given concerns about his declining game, his fit with James and Davis and his willingness to adapt to the team’s desired role for him.
The Lakers would soften their stance for the right return (think Kyrie Irving, several starting-level players, or another disgruntled star). But the front office has been telling the team for weeks that Westbrook will be a Laker by the start of training camp.
There’s a lot to unpack there, and Jovan’s story is it worth reading in its entiretybut let’s go into this report line by line.
That could change if the Lakers find a team willing to take on Westbrook’s expiring contract without also asking for a future first-round pick (2027 or 2029), which hasn’t been the case so far.
I’ll go ahead and make a wild guess that this will likely continue to be the case.
The Lakers would still prefer to trade Westbrook given concerns about his declining game, his fit with James and Davis and his willingness to adapt to the team’s desired role for him.
I mean that makes sense. But as noted above…
The Lakers would soften their stance for the right return (think Kyrie Irving, several starting-level players, or another disgruntled star). But the front office has been telling the team for weeks that Westbrook will be a Laker by the start of training camp.
To recap, it sounds like the Lakers want to trade Westbrook, but not so much that they’d be willing to actually put down anything of value to entice another team to take him. So actually not that bad. It would be like walking into a restaurant, announcing that you want food but not wanting to pay for it, and then just grabbing a chair and staring at the cashier hoping they’ll bring you something to eat . Sure, they might feel bad and bring you an order they screwed up, but more than likely they’ll just leave you sitting and starving.
And because most NBA teams aren’t in the habit of accepting $47 million contracts — no, not even expiring ones — just as a favor with no associated asset, the Lakers and Russ are likely sitting together, victims of their own best interests, but far from the happy homecoming that both sides thought they were signing up for.
Westbrook (completely understandable and rightly so!) wanted back the money he made from the Oklahoma City Thunder when he signed his current contract, and the Lakers (less understandable but still somewhat defensible) don’t want to trade an eighth grader and /or a sixth grader just to get rid of Westbrook and hopefully get closer to his stated goal of the title shot. And as a result of these mutually understandable decisions, both sides will likely continue to be stuck in this self-created standoff where nobody is happy, but nobody wants to make the sacrifice necessary to consciously decouple.
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