Lakers need Russell Westbrook to be the next Rajon Rondo

Barring a massive surprise, Russell Westbrook will be on the Los Angeles Lakers to start the 2021-22 season. While his team will likely not change from last season, Westbrook as a player needs to change if the Lakers are going to be as successful as they are aiming to be.

Westbrook was unable to adapt to that change last season and there are already concerns about his willingness to change next season as well. When head coach Darvin Ham was asked about Westbrook potentially changing roles and playing on the bench, Westbrook, who was in attendance, visibly laughed at the question.

While it might not be what he wants to do, if Westbrook is going to last the entire season in Los Angeles then he is going to have to adapt to this change. The Lakers can buy him out as an expiring contract if Westbrook is actively making the team worse. If Westbrook does not want to agree to a buyout then LA can send him home and tell him not to come back.

So what should the Lakers be looking to get out of Westbrook this upcoming season? It is going to be a massive uphill battle but Ham and the coaching staff should be looking back to the 2019-20 championship team to find the right role for Westbrook.

In short, Russell Westbrook needs to be the new Rajon Rondo for the Los Angeles Lakers.

In particular, Westbrook needs to be the playoff version of Rondo for the Lakers. Granted, Rondo played really well in the playoffs and expecting Westbrook to play that well over 82 games is delusional. However, the team should be following that similar mold for Westbrook’s role on this team.

In the 2019-20 playoffs, Rondo averaged 8.9 points, 6.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds while playing 24.7 minutes per game. He did not start any of his 16 playoff games and put together a box plus/minus of 3.5. That is the 28th-best BPM in league playoff history for players to not start a single game and play at least 300 minutes.

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Rondo operated as the second ball-handler and facilitator for the Lakers to give LeBron James a break and even shot the ball well as an off-ball option. The Lakers should never expect Russell Westbrook to shoot over 40% from three but if they can get his threes per game down to three and he can make one of those per game then it would be a huge win.

The main difference between Rondo and Westbrook is Anthony Davis. Rondo and AD had fantastic chemistry and Rondo made AD better. Westbrook makes AD worse.

Davis and Westbrook had a net rating of -5.4 last season. That made Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook the worst two-man lineup on the Lakers and the 32nd worst in the entire league. Keep in mind there were 223 different two-man lineups who played as many minutes as Westbrook and AD together. That puts them in the 15th percentile.

Ham can tweak that and stagger Westbrook’s minutes with Davis’s minutes but the overall playing time should be similar. It is going to be a really hard pill to swallow but Westbrook should be playing only 25 minutes per game and should only earn crunch time minutes if he shows a commitment to play smarter on the defensive end.

Have Westbrook come off the bench to be the leader of the bench unit and surround LeBron James and AD with shooters and defenders in the starting lineup. That is what made the team so successful in 2020 and while they are limited in resources, that should be the goal in 2022.