Los Angeles Lakers point guard Russell Westbrook has struggled this season, so much so that he’s been booed at home games and taunted by other players who haven’t accomplished as much as he has.
The 2016-17 MVP, Westbrook is averaging 18.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 7.1 assists this season. Those are solid per-game numbers. However, the UCLA product is shooting only 29.4% from beyond the arc and 67.1% from the free-throw line and leads the NBA in turnovers.
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Patrick Beverley has trolled Westbrook a few times this season, which isn’t surprising since the two are rivals. However, one of Westbrook’s other rivals took a different route than Beverley and supported the Lakers star.
During an interview with NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe, Portland Trail Blazers superstar Damian Lillard implied that Westbrook is one of the greatest players in NBA history by saying his “career and legacy is undeniable.” It was neat to hear Lillard defend Westbrook since the two have gotten into it on the court several times in the past.
“If I had to tell him anything, I would just tell him face the music with it,” Lillard said. “Like I just said, the criticism, like, it’s gonna happen. You playing in one of the biggest markets. So I would just face it. Whatever the questions y’all ask me, whether I think it’s a dumb question or something that is self-explanatory or whatever, just face it and deal with it or whatever.
“Russell Westbrook’s career and legacy is undeniable. Like, that’s just the bottom line. The player, the career he’s had, what he’s accomplished, the things that he’s done, nobody else has been able to do it. With all these triple-doubles, I don’t care if you stat-chasing or whatever people wanna say. If I try to go every game and get a triple-double for a whole season, I can’t do it and there’s a lot of other people that can’t do it either. That’s hard in itself to actually do it, whether you’re trying to do it or not.”
Westbrook is the NBA’s all-time leader in triple-doubles. He’s averaged a triple-double for an entire season four times. The Lakers were excited to add Westbrook and pair him with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The organization thought the three future Hall of Famers could contend for a title.
However, since Westbrook can’t shoot jumpers, he’s been a bad fit next to LeBron and Davis. The nine-time All-Star has an effective field goal percentage of 47.3, which is the sixth-worst percentage in the league.
Despite Westbrook’s poor shooting numbers, though, Lillard thinks the criticism Russ has received has been too harsh.
Lillard: Westbrook Bashing Has Been Too Harsh
Westbrook has been called “Westbrick” by fans at games and on social media. Beverley and Karl-Anthony Towns also made fun of him after he air-balled a shot in Minnesota.
Lillard, who was named one of the best 75 players in NBA history this season, believes the Westbrook bashing has been too severe.
“I do think (it has gone) to the extreme,” Lillard told Sharpe about the Westbrook hate. “It’s almost like people just see something that they think everybody’s gonna agree with it if they just talk sh*t about Russell Westbrook. So everybody’s just throwing their stuff at him. It’s going overboard at this point, in my opinion. It’s just crazy to me.”
The Lakers are in 11th place in the Western Conference standings. If they don’t get the ninth or 10th seed, they won’t make the play-in tournament. Even if Los Angeles does make the play-in tournament, it sounds like Westbrook will be on another team next season.
Westbrook, Lakers Have Mutual Interest in Summer Trade
According to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report, Westbrook and the Lakers have mutual interest in parting ways this offseason.
Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey thinks the Lakers should try to trade Westbrook and a 2027 first-round pick to the New York Knicks for Derrick Rose, Evan Fournier and Alec Burks.
“For the Lakers, this deal almost certainly improves their chances to compete. At least according to box plus/minus, all three have been better than Russ in 2021-22,” Bailey wrote. “This doesn’t make L.A. any younger, but they’d be deeper and have more shooters (with Fournier and Burks) to deploy around LeBron James. While you might think a partnership with him and Rose might have some of the same problems as this year’s LeBron-Westbrook pairing, Rose has shown more of an ability to defer to a ball-dominant forward, as he’s done with Julius Randle in New York.”
It will be fascinating to see what the Lakers do this summer with Westbrook.
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Blazers’ Damian Lillard Sounds off on Lakers’ Russell Westbrook