3 free-agent guards who would be better for the Lakers than Westbrook
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers appear to be preparing themselves to head into the 2022-23 season with Russell Westbrook on the market. Los Angeles has seemingly taken a stingy approach with what the team wants to trade to get Westbrook off the roster.
While the Lakers will convince themselves that Westbrook might change for Darvin Ham the fact of the matter is that he simply won’t. Westbrook has never changed in his career and that won’t suddenly be different for the Lakers.
Perhaps the Lakers will quickly realize this and simply tell Westbrook to go home until the team can maybe work out a trade for him at the deadline. If that happens, Los Angeles may have to explore the free-agent market for a guard to replace him.
Luckily, there are 3 free-agent guards who would be better for the Lakers than Russell Westbrook.
1. Dennis Schroder
This is the most obvious one. Signing Schroder at this point in time would not make a lot of sense but if Westbrook is not playing then there is a path that this could work. Darvin Ham already wants to play Westbrook next to Patrick Beverley, so there would not be any hesitations in putting Schroder next to him.
Schroder has similar issues as Westbrook as he is not a great defender and has a tendency to play hero ball from time to time but it is not nearly as bad as it is with Westbrook. More importantly, Schroder is a far better shooter than Westbrook, which helps with the team’s bad floor spacing.
How ironic would it be if the team brought in Schroder to replace the guy that they initially traded for to replace him? As sad as it is, the Lakers would be better off with Schroder.