Lakers fans have been dreaming of his departure for several weeks already but they will have to make up their minds, Russell Westbrook is on track to finish the season in Los Angeles. For the next one, on the other hand, it is far from being done.
If you follow the NBA at least this season, and the Lakers in particular, you must have realized that the results were not up to expectations and that the Big 3 supposed to break everything did not manage to dominate the Western Conference . Targeted as the reason for all the ills of his franchise, Russell Westbrook crystallizes the critics and we would bet that many fans have already put the candle in the church hoping for a maneuver from Rob Pelinka at the trade deadline. Bad luck, despite rumors about a potential exchange with John Wall, it’s not really agitated around Brodie a fortnight from the threshold limit for transfers. We are therefore on track to see number 0 finish the season at the Staples Center, pending a possible evolution this summer. With a player option, Russ has his destiny in hand but will he continue the adventure in LA for all that? It’s not won and we decided to take out the crystal ball to imagine all the possible scenarios.
# Russell Westbrook activates his player option and stays with the Lakers.
This is arguably the worst possible scenario for Hollywood fans. Brodie’s Lakers plan is currently failing and the former Thunder marsupilami has no reason to give up $47 million. They are fully guaranteed and Russ is entitled to put them in the bank account. To make matters worse, Rob Pelinka couldn’t find any team motivated to trade and we had to go back to the fight with the same leaders. It will then be necessary to hope that a season of adaptation will have been enough for the Big 3 to put themselves on the same page and that the results will pass to a whole new level in 2023. Suffice to say that it is far from being won but we should mention it.
# Russell Westbrook activates his player option but is included in a trade.
As mentioned just above, Westbrook is free to take his option and recover his sorrel but that does not give him the power to decide which shirt he will wear next fall. We had the example with Montrezl Harrell this summer, LA can wait for Brodie to activate his option and then integrate him into a trade. His expiring contract will already be easier to transfer. It remains to be seen who will be hot to serve as a trading partner and what the counterpart would be. Houston has been out in the media but the franchise is mostly interested in the potential first pick that would be attached to Russ. According to rumors, the Texans would even be ready to offer a buy-out to the player as soon as he arrives in cowboy country. Suffice to say that a Russell Westbrook available at a lower cost, it could interest beautiful people.
# Russell Westbrook does not activate his player option and he decides to do a Chris Paul in LA… or elsewhere
This is the last hypothesis and not necessarily the most far-fetched. As he turned 33 in November, Brodie knows there aren’t many options left for him to go after a big contract, either in Los Angeles or in another franchise. No one will be willing to offer him 47 million per season if he decides toopt-out this summer but a smaller and longer deal could eventually attract some GMs. Chris Paul had already opted for this strategy this summer, giving up an option at 44 million to recover a new deal of 120 million over 4 years! Something tells us that the West Beast would probably be delighted to be offered such a contract. Small difference: the Point God had turned into a perfect leader to lead his people to the NBA Finals. For the moment, it’s not exactly the kind of sentence you can write when talking about Russ…
Russell Westbrook shouldn’t move at the trade deadline but Brodie’s summer could be much more hectic. We imagined all the scenarios, we let you decide!
Text source: Spotrac
