The Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night to move to 1-4 on the preseason. The loss is not what Lakers fans were fixated on, though, as fans were instead going berserk over two viral clips involving Russell Westbrook.
The first video was taken during pre-game rituals with the entire Lakers team, sans-Westbrook, huddled together near the basket. Westbrook was instead in the corner at the bench, going through his own pre-game ritual.
The other video was during a timeout in action in which Patrick Beverley attempted to huddle together with those on the court to go over something. Westbrook was not part of the huddle with Pat Bev continually urging Westbrook to come over.
It is already a rocky relationship between Westbrook and Lakers fans and the videos certainly did not make that relationship better. With Westbrook dealing with constant trade rumors, you cannot completely blame him for being checked out in a preseason game.
However, that was not the case at all. When asked about the videos the next day, Westbrook defended himself and explained what happened (and what was cut out) during the two videos in particular.
Russell Westbrook explained his view of the videos of him and his Lakers teammates that went viral from Wednesday’s preseason loss today at practice. pic.twitter.com/I0sV212MS1
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 13, 2022
Russell Westbrook deserves a lot of criticism from Lakers fans, but not for these videos.
If this was a case where Westbrook was indeed checked out it would not be hard to understand why. It can be pretty taxing playing for a team that you know is going to trade you the second they find a package that they actually like.
But that obviously was not the case here and it is worth reporting. Westbrook has a very valid reason for the two clips in particular, and even in our original coverage of the fanbase going berserk over the clips we mentioned how the second clip was cut in a way that took out the entire picture.
As bad as it has been on the court for the Lakers, Westbrook has (mostly) handled this situation with class and we have to give him credit for that. The only time we saw it start to slip out for Westbrook was in last season’s exit interview, which was a classic example of blaming everyone but himself.
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Outside of that, Westbrook has been rather professional about this when most times the star player would go on a PR tirade and get himself out of the situation. While Lakers fans don’t really care about that, and instead just want to see good basketball, it is worth acknowledging how Westbrook has handled this.