Now or never: Russell Westbrook gets best chance to win elusive NBA chip with LA Lakers
Russell Westbrook has joined the LA Lakers. This news, which came in early August 2021, has already created its share of doubters and naysayers. Many have labeled these Lakers, spearheaded by a 36-year-old LeBron James, as too old.
That may be a fair statement to some extent. Westbrook himself is on the cusp of 33, while nearly half-a-dozen other Lakers players, including Carmelo Anthony, Trevor Ariza, Marc Gasol and Dwight Howard, are over the age of 35. Old legs aren’t a good starting point for a championship recipe.
Then there are the criticisms of Russell Westbrook’s game itself. That he is a ball-dominant point guard. He has two of the top-five usage percentage seasons in NBA history. Westbrook’s 2016-17 MVP season took pole position here, with a usage percentage score of 41.65%.
Westbrook also doesn’t shoot the 3-ball very well, with a career 3-point shooting percentage of 30.5%, which plummets to 29.6% in the postseason. How is this going to work, is the question on everyone’s mind then?
The other side to Russell Westbrook
But there is more to Russell Westbrook’s game. He is a force of nature, coming at his opponents relentlessly. 75% of his NBA-leading 184 triple-doubles have resulted in wins for his team.
Extrapolating that win percentage over a full NBA regular season in which Westbrook registers a triple-double in every one of his team’s 82 regular season games means that his team will clock 62 wins. This is of course a massive exaggeration, but one gets the point. If Westbrook gets a triple-double, his team generally wins.
Russell Westbrook makes his teammates better
Then there are Russell Westbrook’s teammates, all of whom have benefited by playing alongside him. Kevin Durant became a four-time scoring champ while playing alongside Westbrook at OKC. Durant’s MVP season also came in 2013-14 with Westbrook by his side, although the latter missed a substantial part of the season due to injury. But Durant hasn’t registered a scoring title or made an MVP run ever since he left OKC.
Paul George had the best regular season of his NBA career when he played alongside Russell Westbrook. George finished third in the MVP race for the 2018-19 season and credited Westbrook for much of his success.
Similarly, the Washington Wizards’ Bradley Beal put up a serious challenge for the scoring crown in the 2020-21 season only to fall short at the end. Needless to say, Beal benefited immensely from Westbrook’s rim-running plays, where he drew the attention of several players, creating scoring opportunities for his teammates.
The LA Lakers are hoping to tap into this aspect of Russell Westbrook’s game where he can create for the other players on the roster. Also, having played alongside Durant, George, Carmelo Anthony, James Harden and Beal, Westbrook has shown the willingness to play second-fiddle, something that many All-Stars aren’t able to do.
The AD factor
Anthony Davis was an integral part of the LA Lakers’ title run in 2020. Had he not been injured in the 2021 postseason, the Lakers would have put up a better fight.
And this is where many of the LA Lakers' and Russell Westbrook's critics miss a point. The Lakers aren’t only James’ team. With his ability to protect the rim and dominate inside the paint, Davis is one of the best two-way players in the game. At his age, he is going to be at the peak of his NBA powers.
Giving him a teammate such as Russell Westbrook, who likes to constantly attack, and can break out in transition, might give Davis and the Lakers some really easy buckets. Just seeing Davis and Westbrook in a pick-and-roll situation would give opponents nightmares.
Luck of the dice in the West with the LA Lakers
A cursory look at the Western Conference shows that it’s going to be a mostly top-heavy conference. The Clippers and the Nuggets will struggle to maintain their top spots with long recovery periods for their respective star players, Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Murray.
Portland did not make much of a splash in the offseason, possibly creating more discontent for Damian Lillard. The same could be said for the Dallas Mavericks too, except that they made a coaching change. But one can never be sure about how the relationship between the new coach (Jason Kidd) and franchise player (Luka Doncic) plays out.
Klay Thompson is expected to return to action this year. But even with his addition, and the fact that Stephen Curry will be heading into year 13 of his NBA career, it remains difficult to imagine that the Golden State Warriors will become a 55-win team overnight.
The only other two teams that could hold on to their spot or at least remain in the top four are Utah and Phoenix. But even with a fully fit roster, neither team can match up to the combined talent of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook. Assuming that the Lakers’ have put the injury bug in their rear-view mirror, they should do considerably better than their 42-30 showing from the 2020-21 season.
Last chance for Russell Westbrook really
Russell Westbrook has two years left on the monster $205 million contract that he signed before the start of the 2018-19 season with the Oklahoma City Thunder. The last year on that contract, which is 2022-23, has a player option on it.
By the time that season draws to a close, Westbrook will be close to 35. At that stage of his career, Westbrook would have logged close to 40,000 minutes of NBA playing time. That's a lot of minutes played for someone with his style of play.
And point guards don’t necessarily age very well. The great Detroit Pistons guard Isiah Thomas was a shadow of himself in the last few years of his 13-year NBA career. The same was the case with Steve Nash, whose last two seasons with the LA Lakers were mostly forgettable. Similarly, Gary Payton slotted in as a role player in his last few seasons with the Miami Heat but finally managed to get himself an NBA ring at age 37 over there.
Russell Westbrook isn’t nearly as old as Payton or Nash yet. He’s still a few years younger than Chris Paul, who seemed to run out of gas in the 2021 NBA Finals. But two months shy of his 33rd birthday, Westbrook isn’t getting any younger. Having already played alongside some of the best names of his generation, finding James and Davis as teammates might really be his best chance to win that NBA ring that has eluded him until now.
Russell Westbrook was too young when he went to his first NBA Finals with the Thunder in 2012. One hopes he isn’t too old to make another trip to the NBA’s biggest stage and finish on the winning side.
Also read: Russell Westbrook to LA Lakers: Winners and Losers of this blockbuster trade