Buy or sell 3 Los Angeles Lakers trends amid sluggish start in 2022
By Jason Reed
3. The Los Angeles Lakers have found the perfect role for Russell Westbrook — SELL
One of the bigger storylines of the Los Angeles Lakers’ first win of the season was the fact that Russell Westbrook was coming off the bench and piloting the second unit. Westbrook had one of the best games that he has ever had with the Lakers and played a big role in the team beating Denver.
While it felt great to see Russ play more comfortably and not make the same kind of mistakes that he was making before, simply shifting him to the bench is not going to change the grander picture of this team.
Westbrook is still in a situation where he wants to be the guy on a team that openly doesn’t want him and tried trading him all summer. It might have looked good for one night, but it looked really ugly five other times and that is going to happen more often than it looking good.
It is not like Westbrook’s playing time was slashed much off the bench, either. He was still on the court for most of the game and essentially was in the starting lineup without actually being in the starting lineup. He had one good game. After everything that has happened, with him single-handily losing games this season, we cannot take one game to the bank.
Lakers fans simply need to keep their guard up and not get overly excited about one good game from Russ and expect this to be the new normal. It won’t be, and at the end of the day, this team’s ceiling is easier to reach without Westbrook on the roster.