4 doomsday scenarios that Los Angeles Lakers fans should prepare for
By Jason Reed
2. The Los Angeles Lakers compound the Russell Westbrook issue with another bad trade
The Los Angeles Lakers made one of the worst trades in franchise history when they traded for Russell Westbrook last season. That was the turning point for the franchise when it went from a legitimate title contender to being a team that could not even make the NBA Play-In Tournament.
Some would say that not trading Westbrook this offseason would be a doomsday scenario for the Lakers. While it certainly would hurt the team during the season, there is still the hope of a deadline trade. At the very least, Westbrook is on an expiring contract and the Lakers could wipe their hands clean with him after the 2022-23 season.
Not trading Westbrook is certainly not ideal but in the grand scheme of things, it is not the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen is the Lakers compounding the issues and making yet another bad trade just to get Westbrook out of LA.
A bad trade would be something like flipping Westbrook for John Wall and including a draft pick in the trade. All of the same problems with Westbrook would exist with Wall and the Lakers would be trading yet another future asset to be in the exact same boat.
Another bad trade would be flipping Westbrook’s one bad year of his contract for multiple bad years of another contract. Luckily for LA, there really is not a horrible contract to trade for. The worst would probably be Julius Randle, which is still manageable.