At this point it should come as no surprise that of all our “getting paid more than $30 million” players only Russell Westbrook showed up for Patrick Beverly’s introductory news conference. With a crisp high five and bro hug on camera the pair exchanged their first public display of camaraderie. Listen to Pat and he thinks it can work because they both shoot well from different sides of the floor. At any rate, the fact that Russ continued his summer long pattern of being the only max contract Laker to show up for team-related activities speaks volumes.
To me that says “nothing imminent” and while LT will likely decry these and other moments this summer as smoke screens and posturing at some point either happens or it won’t. I’ve detailed, numerous times and in numerous ways, why I don’t think a trade for Russ is likely before Feb but today’s news conference all but sealed it for me. You have to imagine that Rob keeps Russ abreast of the general situation, that if the Lakers we’re going to change their stance from last February regarding sending out both picks they wouldn’t have waited this long. Russ and Pat exchanging ‘how ya doin?’ pleasantries is a pretty clear indicator neither of them expect anything to happen.
Teams are filling out roster spots with the scrap heap players, some of whom we know well. Still a couple weeks left but I really don’t see a trade happening once camp starts. Barring an obvious gift from the basketball gods trade I don’t see anything happening until the deadline. With every actual
Piece of news or quote from someone on the team that conclusion becomes borderline inevitable.
Does that make me happy? I’m still working through that. Russ was bad last season, Rob’s GMing was arguably worse and we had about zero luck on the health front. Rob is still crapping it up as a GM, in my opinion. If keeping Russ was a remote possibility Rob needed to bring in better shooters and defensive specialists than LW4 for the MLE and should have drafted the best defender possible with the 2nd rounder we bought. Swapping THT for Pat Bev currently ranks as Rob’s best trade to date. That’s scary. To me, anyhow. So, while I just don’t see Rob sending out both picks for the deals on the table, I do see him making his first in-season trade by Feb. The only thing that can stop that is Russ playing well which I think all of us have a hard time seeing.
I’ll give the Lakers front office strategy team and PR department credit for a great campaign to convince Jamie Sweet and other team’s general managers that Russell Westbrook will be on the roster opening day.
Of course, none of the other teams’ GM’s believe that so it’s only Jamie hoping that no trade shows up on Twitter. I still believe this is all posturing and there is no intent by the Lakers to bring Russ back this season. They just want to take the high road when it comes to Russ at this point. But they definitely want to move on.
What I still don’t understand is why the Lakers would want to wait to trade Russ midseason considering all the chaos that bringing him back could cause as well as the difficulty of integrating new key personnel at the halfway point of the season.
You’re betting the start of the season on there being some magical deal at the deadline when you should be making the trade offseason and building and developing a winner that will be ready to make noise come the playoffs.
In the end, this could be all about keeping one of the picks, which would be crazy and not something I think LeBron would have approved. This all has to be posturing. Otherwise, none of it makes sense and the Lakers are doomed.
Glass half full OF DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
Lol, not a “magical” trade. That’s your 4 team blockbuster down yonder. A sensible trade. I know that it’s hard to grasp, you’ve been posting fake Russ trades for 10 months straight, but I’m down to about 10-12% chance we get a deal done by camp.
i posted straight math on this, the Lakets can keep both picks at the deadline I’d wager. He’ll have about 12 mil left on his deal bu yhe deadline, when he signs for a vet min that means around 9 mil is the buyout price. We become the ine doing someone a favor and depending on how things shake out that team could be bot the three we’re relegated tondealing with now
I will only add that from a professional standpoint I think Russ has handled the situation well. However, it is all up to him to do well. He is generally known to have a slow start to the season before going full throttle in the latter part, but he doesn’t have that luxury this time, and any slow start or poor performance will only magnify the wrath of the media and fans alike.