3 reasons why the Lakers definitely won’t trade Russell Westbrook

2. The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t good enough to make a Russell Westbrook trade

This is the sad reality of the situation and might be the hardest for fans to accept. Let’s say Westbrook doesn’t buy into his bench role and after awhile he starts to let it be known that he is unhappy in Los Angeles.

Even if that happens and his solid play resorts back to how he was playing before, the Lakers don’t really have much incentive to make a trade. It was different in the offseason when there was an entire season in front of them and we didn’t know what to expect.

Now, seeing this team play over 10% of its games this season, it is clear that it simply is not talented enough to make a Westbrook trade. It would actually be a bad thing in the big picture to trade Westbrook and the assets it would take along with him for a marginal improvement.

At the time of writing this, the Lakers are a 2-7 basketball team that quite frankly should be a 1-8 team if Dyson Daniels simply made one free throw. Adding Myles Turner and Buddy Hield, or whatever the package would end up being, would not do anything.

Sure, it would make the Lakers better, but it would simply turn them from a play-in team into being a sixth seed at best. Even in the best-case scenario, one playoff series win seems like the ceiling for this Lakers team.

It would be different if the team around Westbrook was good enough to make a run if they got a decent return for him. They simply aren’t.