The Los Angeles Lakers have a bit of momentum after starting the season with an 0-5 record. Darvin Ham moved Russell Westbrook to the bench and the results have followed with two straight promising wins against the Denver Nuggets and New Orleans Pelicans.
While promising, it should not distract from the fact that this team still has a better chance of reaching its ceiling if Westbrook is traded at some point in the year. If he can help keep the team afloat right now that is great but they are not winning more than one playoff series with him in LA.
Trading Westbrook has been very troublesome for the Lakers but that might change as the season goes along. There are several teams who are better off tanking for Victor Wembanyama that are winning more games than expected early on.
With Adam Silver issuing a warning to outright tanking, these teams cannot just sit their talented payers. Instead, they might be better off shipping them to LA for Westbrook and purposefully taking on less in return just so they have a better chance at Wembanyama.
Here are 3 teams that might start calling the Lakers for a Russell Westbrook trade:
1. San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs have a 5-3 record at the time of writing this and are playing far better early on than anyone expected them to play. Not only does the team have a winning record but they have beaten some quality teams as well. San Antonio has wins over the 76ers, Timberwolves (twice) and Bulls.
However, Wednesday’s 143-100 loss shows that this still isn’t a team that is going to consistently compete and they should be aiming for a top pick in the 2022-23 draft. Gregg Popovich is never going to intentionally lose, so giving him someone like Westbrook just so they can buy him out by be the best path.
There is already an easy trade to make that has been talked about before for Doug McDermott and Josh Richardson, two players who would give LA three-point shooting. It would also give the team a big enough trade exception to make a separate deal for Myles Turner.
Who knows, if the Spurs keep winning perhaps they are willing to make this trade for just one first-round pick. It probably won’t get cheaper than that since they are taking on more money in the deal.