Did LeBron's pursuit of Westbrook cost Lakers DeRozan?
With LeBron James helping lead a Lakers rebuild last offseason, Russell Westbrook’s statistical dominance piqued the King’s interest.
In 2017, Westbrook became the first player to average a triple-double since Oscar Robertson, then quickly made a mockery of the novel stat by repeating the trick three times in the following four seasons.
Russ completed a move to the City of Angels in July at the urging of James, a decision that has aged worse than the Lakers' roster this season. Westbrook has fallen flat with a woefully inefficient season, shooting just 44% from the field and 29.4% from 3 while committing 3.8 turnovers per game.
Speaking on ESPN’s "Get Up" Monday morning, Lakers legend and former team executive Magic Johnson placed blame for the whole thing on LeBron, stating that by pushing for Westbrook, the Lakers missed out on the chance to bring in free-agent guard DeMar DeRozan.
Instead of heading to his hometown of L.A., DeRozan went to Chicago on a three-year deal. He's been a star for the Bulls, averaging 28.0 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists while shooting 50% from the field.
"The blame that he’s [LeBron] got to take is the fact that DeRozan ended up in Chicago and not with the Lakers," Johnson said. "We could’ve made that deal. But when Russell and LeBron started talking, that’s when they nixed that deal and went with Westbrook."
Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless discussed Johnson’s comments Tuesday on "Undisputed," agreeing that Westbrook’s do-it-all, stat-padding approach was destined to fail with the NBA’s most revered franchise.
"Westbrook is fraudulent because he’s a stat machine that only cares about his personal stats," Bayless said. "And he prioritizes personal stats over winning basketball games."
Magic blames LeBron for Lakers passing on DeRozan
Westbrook has filled up the stat sheet since entering the league in 2008, averaging 22.8 PPG, 7.4 RPG and 8.4 APG.
However, the point guard has achieved this statistical volume with chronic inefficiency. With a career shooting clip of 43.8%, he has finished with an above-average field goal percentage only three times, in 2011-12, 2015-16 and 2019-20, and has never eclipsed the league-average in effective field goal percentage.
Additionally, the nine-time All-Star has been unable to replicate his previous success in the NBA, failing to advance past the opening round of the NBA playoffs each season since 2015-16.
For Laker nation, a fan base with an unrivaled history of exceptional basketball and expectations for championships, Sharpe argues that Russ’ approach will never work.
"Russ thought he could come home, play the way he’s been playing, lose, and still be embraced because he’s the hometown kid," Sharpe said. "That works in OKC (Oklahoma City), that works in Houston, that works in Washington. But that’s not going to fly here [Los Angeles] because they know great basketball."
It’s hardly been Russ against the world throughout Westbrook’s career either as he’s shared the backcourt with some of the NBA’s elite players.
Kevin Durant and Westbrook fell short of the 2011 Finals together with Oklahoma City, James Harden and Westbrook lost in the conference finals after one season together and Westbrook’s most recent experiment with LBJ seems destined to be a playoff-less disaster.
Both Harden and Durant left Westbrook in search of greener, trophy-laden pastures elsewhere, and Bayless argues that LeBron recruited Russ to one-up these superstars.
"LeBron was thinking, ‘I got a chance to say look what I did with Russ,’" Sharpe said. "And about 20 games into the season, LeBron is thinking to himself, ‘God what did I get myself into?"
But with Magic Johnson taking aim at the journeyman superstar and Bayless and Sharpe somehow agreeing on Westbrook’s futility, it’s hard to draw many positives from his stint in LA.
