How the Los Angeles Lakers can fix the Russell Westbrook problem

The Los Angeles Lakers have been incredibly disappointing this season and at this point, it would be a surprise if the team could avoid the play-in tournament for the second year in a row. This year, it seems far less likely that the Lakers would be able to secure a playoff spot if they were a 7-10 seed.

A lot of the team’s problems have been boiled down to Russell Westbrook, and in particular, the trade that the team made for him in the offseason. By trading for Westbrook, the Lakers significantly hurt their depth and their flexibility to add quality depth in free agency all for a guy who has one won playoff game past the first round since Kevin Durant left him and obviously did not fit with LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

The Lakers quickly had internal decisions about trading Westbrook but no other team was foolish enough to make the same mistake that Rob Pelinka did in the offseason. Westbrook is still on the roster after the trade deadline and Laker fans have to cross their fingers that something magically clicks.

There is only one way for the Lakers to potentially make things click, though.

The Los Angeles Lakers should just tell Russell Westbrook to go home.

I am not kidding. The Los Angeles Lakers were not able to trade Russell Westbrook and at this rate, the best thing for the team is not playing him and trying to find a point guard on the buyout market who can take some of his minutes (as well as distributing his minutes to players who deserve more playing time).

There are a few reasons why this could be beneficial to the Los Angeles Lakers. Let’s break them down.

1. This allows the Lakers to try and go back to what they had in 2020

The depth is nowhere near the same so this is not going to be completely successful but the Los Angeles Lakers had a good thing going when it was just LeBron James and Anthony Davis as the stars with role players around them.

This would give them enough time to familiarize the rotation around those two and just try and see how far they can take them. Sure, the defense will be awful, but it is already awful. But shooters around them (Malik Monk, Carmelo Anthony and Wayne Ellington) and just try and score 130 points a night.

2. This could upset Russell Westbrook enough that he does not want to come back

This is wishful thinking on my part but who knows, Russell Westbrook is a confident guy who really cares about his playing time. He even blamed his recent back injury on the fact that he is getting benched more (even though he is averaging the same number of minutes as his MVP season).

Westbrook has a player option for the 2022-23 season that is going to pay him $47 million. There is a 95% chance that he opts into that deal knowing that he will not get anywhere close to that salary on the open market.

However, if the Lakers don’t let him play the rest of the year that could anger him enough where all he wants is to be out of LA so he can actually play next season. And heck, Westbrook still seems to think that he is one of the best players in the league so maybe he will pull a Dennis Schroder and think that he will get a big offer in free agency only to become an MLE guy.

I would still put my money on Westbrook opting into the 2022-23 season for 47 million reasons, but this at least increases the chance of terminating the relationship in the summer, which should really be the goal.