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After yet another loss to open their season, the Los Angeles Lakers are coming under increasing fire from the media, especially Russell Westbrook.
According to Stephen A. Smith on an October 24 episode of ESPN’s First Take, LeBron James is partly responsible for the media’s hyper-fixation on the beleaguered guard to start the season.
“To my brother, LeBron James. My brother, you are a brilliant brother, brilliant basketball player, brilliant mind…But don’t think you’re that damn smart, that you get to navigate this…talking about the media setting you up to get at Russell Westbrook, nah my brother, you did that.
Opening night, when you said ‘we’re not a team of shooters,’ you know good and well who everybody was going to look at. And you said it anyway. You’ve gotta own that, my brother. You’ve gotta own that. You cannot want to talk about Westbrook for the rest of the year, we’re all going to remember what you said on opening night, it’s just that simple,” Smith said.
Smith’s comments come after LeBron refused to be drawn into a discussion about Westbrook’s level of play and decision-making down the stretch in the team’s latest loss.
Darvin Ham Doesn’t Have Time for Feelings
Since Darvin Ham assumed the role of Lakers head coach, he has discussed the notion of potentially moving Westbrook into a bench role – with the hopes that it would galvanize the 33-year-old into returning to his All-Star level form.
Over the first three games of the season, we’ve seen Westbrook sit for stretches during crunch time, with mixed results. However, when asked about potentially upsetting the star guard with a reduced role, Ham gave an unforgiving response.
“From Day 1, I said I’m going to do whatever I need to do to make us successful. We don’t have time for feelings, for people to be in their feelings. We’re trying to turn this around,” Ham said.
At this point, trying different rotations to locate the best blend of players on the court is far more important than protecting any one player’s feelings, regardless of if that leads to some heated discussions on the court or during practice sessions.
Nick Wright Blames Rob Pelinka
When you look at all the different areas of the Lakers roster that need fixing, it becomes clear just how disjointed the team’s recruitment has been over the last two years. In the modern NBA, it’s almost unthinkable to have such a shallow pool of perimeter players, and such limited options in the frontcourt – yet that’s exactly where the Lakers find themselves.
Speaking on an October 21 episode of Fox Sports’ First Things First, Nick Wright noted that Rob Pelinka is the one at fault, as recruitment is part of his job description.
“We know (Buddy Hield) and (Myles) Turner are available, we’re gonna wait and see if something better develops… That doesn’t justify, two straight post-seasons of building out a roster as if the three-point line didn’t exist. Which is what they’ve done. Last year, they went with old guys, ‘savvy veterans,’ this year ‘young, athletic guys.’ Neither year did they get shooters. (Matt) Ryan, he might need to start,” Nick Wright said.
