That's such an irrelevant point of discussion. This trade would never have happened so why even bother bringing it up?
This is a night we got Green, Sengun, Garuba, and Christopher, and the Lakers got Westbrook. LOL. Did I go to heaven already?
Lebron must be completely desperate to make this move. I'm guessing he can't trust the health of himself or AD to carry the regular season now. Also like what happened with Harden + WB, the talking heads with gush over how good a fit WB is during the regular season even though just on talent alone, the Lakers should be minimum 4 seed.
The aura of playing in LA and the greatest franchise in sports, the Lakers will bring out the best in Russell. He's too old to become a great shooter or decision maker but I think he will be more methodical to match his aggressiveness. He and Lebron won't be a perfect on and off court duo but they're good enough of a perimeter pairing to win a ring
The best part of this is that all of the people who claim to be Westbrook fans who have really never watched him play, are likely Laker fans and they are about to find out why he's been on 4 teams in 4 years. Westbrook has had a lot of love from casuals since his MVP season, my guess is when this blows up, they will blame Lebron. Its either that or Lebron pulls off a miracle and gets through to Brodie.
Shortly after the Washington Wizards’ season ended with a first-round playoff loss, general manager Tommy Sheppard dropped a hint of what was to come. “This is not a run-it-back team,” he said. Now, it’s official. Changes are arriving. Big ones. Just before Thursday’s NBA Draft, the Wizards and Lakers agreed to a deal that will send Russell Westbrook to Los Angeles for Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Montrezl Harrell and the No. 22 pick, sources told The Athletic. Washington also will route a 2024 and a 2028 second-round pick to L.A. The swap won’t become official until the start of free agency on Aug. 6. As Bradley Beal spent the last few weeks mulling his future with the organization, as The Athletic previously reported, Westbrook also was deciding his own. The former MVP, who is from the L.A. area, spent parts of the offseason discussing the possibility of teaming up with four-time champion LeBron James and eight-time All-Star Anthony Davis. Westbrook had a growing desire to join James and Davis in Los Angeles to compete for a championship, sources said. He formally informed the Wizards of his desires recently, according to sources: if they could find a trade that works, Westbrook wanted to go to the Lakers. They landed on one. Washington executed the deal with no issues from Beal, per sources. The three-time All-Star, who is entering the final season of his contract, has expressed no desire to leave the Wizards, according to sources. As speculation about his future has swirled, the team remains confident it can keep him for the long term. The Wizards can offer him a four-year, $180 million extension in October, but if he waits until 2022 free agency, he can sign a five-year contract for an estimated $235 million to return to Washington. One of the main reasons Westbrook wanted to come to D.C. when the Wizards traded John Wall for him in December was the presence of head coach Scott Brooks, who coached the former MVP from 2008-15 in Oklahoma City. But the Wizards did not retain Brooks when his contract expired at the end of the 2020-21 season despite Westbrook’s outspoken recommendation that they should. Westbrook preferred a more established coach to replace Brooks, according to sources. The Wizards eventually hired former Nuggets assistant Wes Unseld Jr., whose résumé includes 16 years as an NBA assistant and eight more as an advance scout. The Lakers set an offseason goal to acquire an elite playmaker next to James and Davis. They deemed Westbrook worthy. He averaged a triple-double during his one season in D.C., the fourth time in five years he’s done so. Many in the Wizards organization praised him for how he changed the team’s culture and work ethic. He will turn 33 years old at the start of next season and has two years and $91 million remaining on his contract. The Wizards believe the package from the Lakers improves their depth. They view Caldwell-Pope, one of Beal’s closest friends in the league and the type of player they have sought after for years, as their next starting small forward. Washington went into the offseason hoping to improve its defense and long-range shooting. Caldwell-Pope can guard the perimeter physically and is versatile. He sank 41 percent of his 3-point attempts last year. He will reposition 2020 first-round pick Deni Avdija to the bench, the Wizards’ preferred spot for the 20-year-old as he returns from a fractured fibula. The trade gives Washington more roster flexibility, too. Westbrook has a couple of seasons remaining on a supermax contract. Breaking his deal into three middling ones could make it easier for the Wizards to pull off trades for more reasonable salaries. Harrell is only one year removed from winning NBA Sixth Man of the Year and averaged 13.5 points per game for the Lakers last season, but he fell out of their rotation during the playoffs. Kuzma has improved as a defender and shot 36 percent from beyond the 3-point arc in 2020-21. Both create redundancies on what’s now an imbalanced roster. Renovations are coming — especially at point guard, where the team has an obvious, Westbrook-sized hole. Sources say to keep an eye on 28-year-old free agent Spencer Dinwiddie, who missed most of last season with a torn ACL but averaged 20.6 points per game in 2019-20. The Wizards are above the salary cap but could try to negotiate a sign-and-trade with Dinwiddie’s incumbent team, the Nets. The other pieces from the Westbrook trade, Harrell and Kuzma alone, would not be enough for Brooklyn to accept a Dinwiddie deal, according to a source. Dinwiddie is expected to receive interest from several teams, including the Nets, Knicks, Heat and Raptors, sources said. The Wizards made a smaller move for a point guard Thursday, flipping the No. 22 pick, which they received in the Westbrook trade, to the Pacers for fourth-year guard Aaron Holiday and No. 31, which netted them 19-year-old stretch 4 Isaiah Todd. Washington grew enamored with Holiday when he worked out for them before the 2018 draft and actually tried to trade for him a year ago. That wasn’t all. The Wizards’ Thursday night also included selecting 22-year-old sharpshooter Corey Kispert with the No. 15 pick, which gives them another 3-point threat. Kispert, who made 44 percent of his long-range attempts last season at Gonzaga, was the top shooter on the Wizards’ list and No. 10 on their draft big board, a source said. Sheppard mentioned in a news conference that the Wizards explored trading up for him before taking him 15th. Washington is now capable of loading lineups with shooters, something it seriously struggled with in 2020-21 when it neither made nor took many 3-pointers. It finished 23rd in 3-point percentage and 29th in 3-point rate (the percentage of their field-goal attempts that came from beyond the arc). Now, it can piece together units with Beal, Kispert, Davis Bertans, Thomas Bryant and whomever it has at point guard. Caldwell-Pope will fit in there, too. The Wizards now have 3-point menaces. If Dinwiddie does not end up in D.C., options remain. This summer’s free agency class is rich with capable point guards — from top-flight ones (who are not realistic for Washington), like Chris Paul, Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry to more reasonably-priced ones, like Reggie Jackson, Patty Mills, Cameron Payne and Devonte’ Graham, amongst others. A reunion with free-agent Raul Neto, who spot-started for the Wizards last season, is a possibility, sources say. They can use the mid-level exception, worth up to $9.5 million, to sign free agents. The Westbrook and Holiday trades, which shave more than $5 million from their payroll, give them extra room to operate below the luxury tax line. They also created an $8.5 million trade exception in the Westbrook deal, which they can use to trade for a player who makes up to $8.6 million (yes, it’s confusing, but that’s not a typo) without having to match salaries in the exchange. For now, the roster is unbalanced. But moves are coming. Teams can begin speaking to free agents on Aug. 2. The Wizards have 15 players under contract. But with Westbrook gone and both Neto and Ish Smith hitting free agency, they have only one point guard in Holiday, a 24-year-old who was a backup in Indiana last season and projects to hold a similar role in 2021-22. They have a logjam of 3/4 types. Rui Hachimura, Avdija, Bertans, Kuzma and Chandler Hutchison all overlap in some way or another. Kispert could fit into this player type, too. They’re adding the second-rounder Todd to the mix too. Power forward Anthony Gill and wing Caleb Homesley are under contract but are non-guaranteed for 2021-22. They have another crowd at center with three players who warrant playing time: Bryant, Harrell and Daniel Gafford — though Bryant will miss the beginning of the season as he continues to recover from the ACL he ruptured in January. The Wizards hope he can return by December, according to a source, though it’s difficult to lock in a specific return time this far out. But this is not what the roster will look like at the start of the season. The Wizards, after all, were not a run-it-back team. And now, they are officially not running it back.
Until Westbrook wound up on our team, I didn't fully comprehend how bad a shooter he was. The Lakers better load up on role players that can shoot. Gotta give props to the Wizards on this one for getting out of the Wall contract.
“Kuzma’s SUV was stolen … and then taken on a joy ride that led to a high-speed chase, and an eventual crash,” TMZ reported. “Law enforcement sources tell us … Kuzma’s Chevy Tahoe SUV was stolen somewhere in Hollywood and eventually became involved in a police pursuit around 1:30 AM early Sunday morning. The chase, we’re told, ended with the suspect hitting a cop car, and sending an officer to the hospital with minor injuries.”
Yes but the driver hit over 20 cars, ran 10 lights, and created over 10 secondary car collisions - Kuzma can't give you that.
