Lakers: Bill Simmons has the most realistic Russell Westbrook prediction

The number one goal for the Los Angeles Lakers this season is going to be to get Russell Westbrook out of LA. The Westbrook experience was an absolute disaster and that disaster will translate to next season if the team cannot move him.

The problem is that moving Westbrook is going to be really hard for the Lakers to do. With his enormous salary, Westbrook is not only one of the players with the least trade value in the league, but finding a team that even has the contracts to match Westbrook’s is a struggle.

That has not stopped the Russell Westbrook trade predictions. Some of the deals make sense while others are a bit ludicrous. When it comes to the most accurate Westbrook prediction, Bill Simmons perhaps took the cake.

In a conversation with Kevin O’Conner on a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, the NBA pundit explained why he thinks a Westbrook trade won’t happen. To summarize, Simmons does not think the Lakers will want to part ways with future picks to move Westbrook and instead will keep him around until the NBA trade deadline in 2023.

Simmons’ take is that Westbrook will stick around on the team but the Lakers will replicate the John Wall situation and essentially pay him to not play. This would all be with the hope that there will be a desperate team that is willing to blow things up on the roster and is willing to trade for half a season of Westbrook’s expiring deal.

Why this is the most realistic Russell Westbrook prediction for Los Angeles Lakers:

It is not impossible for the Lakers to trade Westbrook this summer but it is going to be very tough. Either way, the team is going to have to trade future assets to get his contract off the books. With how this season panned out and seeing that the New Orleans Pelicans could get a top-four pick from the Lakers, chances are they do not want to do that.

LA could then try and buy Westbrook out before the season but that does not make sense for two reasons. First, the Lakers would still carry his cap hit for the entire year and second, Westbrook has a basketball ego that would likely keep him from accepting a buyout.

There are actual reasons for a team to trade for Westbrook at the halfway point of the season. If there is a team like the New York Knicks who are yet again playing poor basketball, they would benefit from moving off of all their assets and trading away multiple years of contracts to simply hit the reset button, get Westbrook and get all of the cap space that comes with him in the 2023 summer.

This would likely result in the Lakers not having cap space in the summer of 2023 but the timeline to win a title with LeBron James is shrinking, especially if he does not sign an extension this summer.

Very few teams are going to commit to being bad in the 2022-23 season before it even starts. However, by the time February rolls around, teams can be much more realistic and throw in the towel and make a trade for someone like Westbrook.