Nets owner’s described desires scream for Lakers’ Russell Westbrook

The biggest thing holding the Los Angeles Lakers back is Russell Westbrook. The former MVP is one of the highest-paid players in the league and actively made the team worse as he is a poor fit next to LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

Fans were preparing for Westbrook to return to Los Angeles next season but there is now light at the end of the tunnel. While the speculation was killed for about two days, the Kyrie Irving trade door is now wide open for the Lakers after Kevin Durant’s trade request from the Brooklyn Nets.

In theory, the Nets are now going to blow the team up for assets and Irving reportedly does not have much trade value. Thus, it could be possible that the Lakers can trade Westbrook and 1-2 future first-round picks in order to trade for Irving. Before, that was not possible as Kevin Durant would have never welcomed a reunion with Westbrook.

However, without Durant, Westbrook might be someone who the Nets actually want to bring in — at least if owner Joe Tsai gets his way. Brian Windhorst said on a recent episode of ‘Get Up’ that Tsai would rather have a team that plays hard and “fights for the play in” rather than a team with talent that he is “not proud of”.

Lakers’ Russell Westbrook is perfect for the Brooklyn Nets if this is what Joe Tsai really wants.

Before this quote, it seemed like the Nets would have been destined to simply buy out Russell Westbrook if they were going to trade for him to save some money. However, if this description of Tsai is correct, Westbrook might end up playing a full season in Brooklyn (if he is traded).

Westbrook may not be the MVP version of himself and he may not be a winning player in the grand scheme of things (just one playoff series win since Kevin Durant left OKC), but he is someone who tries extremely hard every single night.

And while Westbrook does not translate to playoff success, he does help elevate bad teams in the regular season. If he is given the chance to play with a massively high usage rate he can elevate bad teams into mediocre teams.

Westbrook is the face of trying extremely hard with a ceiling of 40 wins and a play-in appearance. He isn’t a long-term solution for the Nets but he is someone who Tsai could actually be proud of as the Nets enter a new era of basketball without KD and Kyrie.

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There is no point for Brooklyn to tank as Houston owns just about every pick they have for the next few years. Might as well let Westbrook free and push the team to a 10th seed.