The Los Angeles Lakers wanted to stress something different with gunpoint ward A.E. Westbrook coming off the bench inwards their final preseason game, but the try out did not lead as planned when his scant prematurely ended due to a hamstring tendon injury.
Westbrook left hand the judicature in the first off canton against the capital of California Kings, which the Lakers later explained was a left hand hamstring tendon injury.
Rookie head coach Darvin Ham hinted the Lakers would utilize Westbrook as their 6th adult male after they signed head guard Dennis Schroder. The conception of Westbrook as a stockpile never came to fruition until the Lakers gave it a convolution last-place night.
In 78 games with the Lakers cobbler's last season, Westbrook averaged 18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 7.1 assists per game. He swaybacked below 20 points per gamey for the first clip inwards 11 seasons.
The Lakers are +1880 odds to win the 2023 NA Championship, according to DraftKings. The Lakers are +750 betting odds to win the Western Conference as the fourth-highest team on the futures board. In the race to win the top-heavy Pacific Ocean Division, the Lakers are +800 odds and quaternary on the futures board in arrears the L.A. Clippers (+180), Golden State Warriors (+195), and Phoenix Suns (+225).
The Lakers missed the postseason finally year, and bubbled the Western Conference Play-In Tournament with a 33-49 record.
Westbrook the Sixth Man
Ham insisted that moving Westbrook to the bench as the sixth man was non a demotion.
It’s non a demotion, it’s a realignment,” Ham told the L.A. Times.
Westbrook is a former MVP who averaged a triple-double for trine seasons inward a row during his term of office with the OK City Thunder. It could follow a huge blow to his egotism if he gets a full clip reassignment to the secondly unit. Ham and the Lakers cogitate Westbrook coming turned the bench would place them inwards the best come in to come after on a nightly base and contend for a NBA championship inward a stacked Western Conference.
“We discussed it yesterday, and it’s something we’ve touched on during the summer hither and there,” added Ham. “He’s been a pro, man. Russ is ace of the to the highest degree beautiful human beings I’ve ever amount crosswise in this business, on and off the floor. He totally understood. Totally looked me in the eye and said, ‘Yeah coach, whatever you want me to do.’ You can’t use up that for granted.”
Boisterous fans, amateur medical experts, and NBA confederacy theorists were quick to vocalism their persuasion on Westbrook and his subsequent hamstring injury. Although thither was no picture grounds of when the trauma actually occurred during the first of all canton against the Kings, it coincidently happened on the same dark the Lakers wanted to essay come out Westbrook as the sixth man.
When Will the Lakers Trade Westbrook?
Rob Pelinka, the superior general manager of the Lakers, would’ve traded Westbrook by now if he found an offer than benefited the team up and did not cost them preciously tipple capital. The Lakers leveraged the next few years of tipple picks inward previous trades that brought Susan Anthony Stuart Davis and Westbrook to the team.
The Brooklyn Nets were interested in swapping Westbrook for Kyrie Irving, but the Nets wanted the Lakers to stroke in a yoke of first-round draught picks. As a great deal as the Lakers would enjoy to run Westbrook, they are non willing to include any first-round order of payment picks.
Pelinka hopes other teams testament get down their asking toll after the flavor begins and it gets finisher to the craft deadline next February. In the meantime, Ham and the Lakers hold no pick but to dramatic play Westbrook and attempt to figure come out a way of life how he can buoy go inwards with the team.
Ham replaced head up coach-and-four Frank Vogel who got fired in the offseason. Vogel and Westbrook clashed from their number 1 use inwards grooming refugee camp lastly year. Their fractured human relationship was a harbinger of doomsday for the reside of the season.
Ham said his goal was to happen a path to make the Lakers’ offensive rate of flow with Westbrook, James, and Miles Davis on the homage at the same time. After intuitive feeling out the team up during the preseason, Ham wanted to assay come out Westbrook away the bench. Vogel had a similar notion utmost season, but he got a lot of backfire from Westbrook and the front end office.