Nick Wright asserts Russell Westbrook-LA Lakers situation has become untenable - “You gotta send Russ home, you just can’t play him”
Following the LA Lakers' loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, Russell Westbrook once again became a topic of severe criticism, largely owing to yet another poor shooting night, where Westbrook failed to sink all three of his three-point attempts from behind the arc.
LeBron James once again came to the Lakers' rescue, scoring a team-high 31 points in the loss. Anthony Davis tallied a 22-point, 10-rebound double-double.
FS1's Nick Wright on his podcast, "What's Wright?," fired off his take on the Westbrook saga, calling for his departure from LA:
"It has gotten to this point with Russ. If you don't want to trade him yet because you want to wait and see if there is a better trade available than the Pacers trade. You have to send him home. You can't play him.
"You just can't. You gotta send Russ home, you just can't play him. And if you're not gonna pull off the trade so be it, if you wanna wait on it, he's unplayable.
"I'm debating, whether I'd make him a six-man or just bench him entirely, but that decision (that last shot Russ took) last night was such a bleep you to his teammates and to his coach and to everyone, it was so bad.
A closer look at Russell Westbrook's career shooting numbers
While Russell Westbrook's heave with enough time for a "two-for-one" might have been detrimental to the Lakers last night, had he made that shot, the Lakers would have almost certainly won the game.
This is unequivocally not the first instance where Westbrook has had a poor shooting night and in fact, he has never really been an efficient scorer.
Between the 2008-09 NBA season and the 2021-22 NBA season, Westbrook has shot above the league-average on just three occasions, and his 2016-17 MVP season was his fourth-least efficient season, when he shot just 42.5% from the field.
For a point-guard, Westbrook's assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.05 isn't exactly up to the mark, nor is his outside shooting. Westbrook is among the dying breed of rim-running point-guards that inundated the league in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
However, most offenses in the NBA today run on a simple formula to score. You either get a corner three-point shot, get layups, or make a living on the charity stripe.
This leads to another very interesting stat: Westbrook has often been a high-volume, low-efficient shooter. In other words, some who just "chucks" the ball enough times for his averages to kick in.
Russell Westbrook has made 3 of 17 jump shots this season.
Also, he is the only player that has attempted a jump shot with under 30 seconds to go and 15+ seconds left on the shot clock with their team up by 1 possession in the last 4 seasons. https://t.co/DrH8UEs2L9
During his MVP season, Russell Westbrook attempted 7.2 three-pointers per game, more than double the league average (3.1) for point-guards that season. In 2018-19, Westbrook attempted 5.6 threes a game, again well above the league average for PGs (3.6).
A similar case can be made over a number of seasons, with the point being that his efficiency in OKC, Houston and Washington went unchecked, and with the Lakers, it has now come to haunt them in the worst way possible.