A day after the Lakers decided to trade for Russell Westbrook the world has reacted mostly negatively. With most of the "smart" basketball universe criticizing this move for a variety of reasons mostly centered around Westbrook's clunky fit on the team.
In my previous Lakers post, I mentioned the Lakers really needed to add some 3 point shooting to help ease the game for Lebron and AD with better spacing. This trade moves them in the opposite direction. Russell Westbrook is among the worst volume shooters in the NBA. He is a ball dominant guard who is prone to bouts of bad decision making especially in key spots, and is a mediocre defensive player on a team where defense has been a key part of their identity over the past 2 seasons. It's also questionable whether he can contribute to winning basketball at the highest level at this stage in his career. It's worth stating the Lakers can still add 3 point shooting in free agency, but going all in on Westbrook certainly isn't a promising sign that the Lakers will be a meaningfully better shooting team next season and limits the kind of players that they could bring in this offseason to effectively minimum players.
I'm not really trying to litigate Russell Westbrook's career. He is undoubtedly a Hall of Famer and I do think the slander online has gotten to a point where a lot of the positive aspects of his game are lost. Being a good NBA basketball player isn't solely a product of how well you can shoot from 3.
Truth be told, I am more than a little nervous about this trade and how it will play out. Less so for the players we lost, but more about who Russ is as a player and how he fits next to our 2 best players. Rather than repeating what everyone else has said, I'm going to try to lay out the positive case for Westbrook on this team and how it could work.
#1: Unlocking a better AD
One thing that I mentioned in my offseason preview was that we needed more AD at the 5 this season. In the title season, AD spent 40% of his regular season minutes at Center versus only 10% last year (per Basketball-Reference). That has to change next season, especially with Westbrook on the roster. Having Russ/AD/Bron without a center will already be a spacing challenge in the half court. Adding a Center to the mix will only compound those issues. The Lakers are at their best when Lebron/AD play the 4/5 and so having Westbrook might force them into those positions instead of indulging AD at the 4. That alone could be a huge win for this team
Ben Taylor lays out the pro AD case really well explaining how AD helps augment star players around him as the game's best finisher (and arguably the GOAT lob threat in NBA history). While Seth Partnow lays out the opposite case for why AD isn't at the very top tier of players because of his inability to initiate offensive at high volume or particularly efficiently per the chart below.
In my previous Lakers post, I mentioned the Lakers really needed to add some 3 point shooting to help ease the game for Lebron and AD with better spacing. This trade moves them in the opposite direction. Russell Westbrook is among the worst volume shooters in the NBA. He is a ball dominant guard who is prone to bouts of bad decision making especially in key spots, and is a mediocre defensive player on a team where defense has been a key part of their identity over the past 2 seasons. It's also questionable whether he can contribute to winning basketball at the highest level at this stage in his career. It's worth stating the Lakers can still add 3 point shooting in free agency, but going all in on Westbrook certainly isn't a promising sign that the Lakers will be a meaningfully better shooting team next season and limits the kind of players that they could bring in this offseason to effectively minimum players.
I'm not really trying to litigate Russell Westbrook's career. He is undoubtedly a Hall of Famer and I do think the slander online has gotten to a point where a lot of the positive aspects of his game are lost. Being a good NBA basketball player isn't solely a product of how well you can shoot from 3.
Truth be told, I am more than a little nervous about this trade and how it will play out. Less so for the players we lost, but more about who Russ is as a player and how he fits next to our 2 best players. Rather than repeating what everyone else has said, I'm going to try to lay out the positive case for Westbrook on this team and how it could work.
#1: Unlocking a better AD
One thing that I mentioned in my offseason preview was that we needed more AD at the 5 this season. In the title season, AD spent 40% of his regular season minutes at Center versus only 10% last year (per Basketball-Reference). That has to change next season, especially with Westbrook on the roster. Having Russ/AD/Bron without a center will already be a spacing challenge in the half court. Adding a Center to the mix will only compound those issues. The Lakers are at their best when Lebron/AD play the 4/5 and so having Westbrook might force them into those positions instead of indulging AD at the 4. That alone could be a huge win for this team
Ben Taylor lays out the pro AD case really well explaining how AD helps augment star players around him as the game's best finisher (and arguably the GOAT lob threat in NBA history). While Seth Partnow lays out the opposite case for why AD isn't at the very top tier of players because of his inability to initiate offensive at high volume or particularly efficiently per the chart below.
Source: The Athletic
Where you fall on the Partnow - Taylor debate really comes down to what you value in basketball players. The players who are best at initiating their own offense are oftentimes floor raisers, just their presence alone makes your team very good. While players like AD are the ultimate ceiling raisers, unlocking the top potential of your team when surrounded with other good players.
This is basically a long-winded way of saying that AD unlike other star players can succeed (and I would say is at his best) when deployed as more of a finisher than initiator. Over the past 2 seasons, the Lakers have sometimes struggled to get the most out of AD by having him post up too much and initiate a lot of individual offense. AD excels as a dive man in pick and roll/pop, in transition, on the offensive glass, and generally being in motion much more so than as a stationary player. Adding more creators around AD should only help AD play at his best.
As for Russ, he has never played with a big man as dynamic as AD and playing with each other could lift both of their games up. The Russ/AD pick and roll against bench lineups has the chance to be absolutely devastating as Russ will draw so much attention charging at the rim.
In transition, the Lakers already like to leak out AD because he is so gifted at running the floor and beating the other team's big down for easy baskets. Westbrook's elite skill as a rebounder can ignite the Laker's transition game even further by allowing AD to leak out more often. Transition offense was an essential part of the team's 2020 title, especially given the team's shakiness in the half court. Making the Lakers an even more devastating transition team could cover up for the team's weaknesses in the half court.
For the Lakers to win another title, getting the most out of AD will be essential and not only does Russ make that a possibility, but also AD is the type of superstar that can help lift Russ as well.
#2: Talent is more important than fit
When the Rockets traded for Chris Paul in 2017, I was a skeptic the trade would work because I felt that both James and Chris were ball dominant players and weren't particularly effective off the ball. Daryl Morey's view at the time was that talent will figure it out and that teams should always bias towards having the most talent. I've come around to generally agree with that thesis. That's not to say fit doesn't matter, but that talent is just more important than fit.
Simply put, Westbrook is the most talented player the Lakers could acquire and even though his fit is challenging the talent alone will overcome those fit issues. With a coherent roster around Lebron/AD/Russ of shooters, maybe the talent of the 3 of them can overcome what will be an obvious lack of shooting.
#3: Making non-Lebron lineups competent
Over the last 2 years, the Lakers have struggled when Lebron goes to the bench. In particular, those struggles are most apparent on the offensive end of the floor. As shown above, AD isn't the best offensive initiator and the team can oftentimes look totally unorganized when Lebron exits the game. Russ is in a lot of ways a poor man's Lebron with his ability to organize a team's offense and be an elite playmaker. Dennis (and Rondo a year prior) was supposed to organize the offense when Lebron was out and struggled to do so well. Russ should help make those offenses at least competent, which is more than we can say about non-Lebron lineups over the past 2 seasons.
I generally like teams taking big risks. Title windows are really short (especially when your best player is entering his 19th season) and so going all in is an approach I generally support. I remain mildly skeptical of the playoff fit of these 3 players, but do believe that there is a pathway to success for this team if the other pieces can come to place and if Russ makes some tweaks to his approach.