Editor’s note: This is the Thursday, Jan. 20 edition of the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
Back on Dec. 28, a revolution was afoot.
The Lakers unveiled a starting lineup that, for the first time, would feature LeBron James at center. After the four-time league MVP had rallied them back from the brink against the Brooklyn Nets nearly to a comeback win, the coaching staff was motivated to find more minutes for a super-small lineup that charged up the offense to end a five-game losing streak.
“LeBron’s plus-minus at the five is so ridiculous right now,” said then interim-coach David Fizdale. “And for us to have guys out with COVID and stuff like that, I just took a gamble and said, ‘You know, I think that tonight’s the night to start him at five.’”
On its face, it resembled a move that a Russell Westbrook team had taken two years earlier. In fact, it was in Houston where then-GM Daryl Morey was moved to trade away Clint Capela to run a daring gambit of a micro-ball lineup that featured 6-foot-7 Robert Covington as the tallest player. In the spacing the Rockets created in the middle of the 2019-20 season, Westbrook thrived: For nearly a two-month stretch until the pandemic-induced hiatus, he averaged 32.2 points on 53.1% shooting along with 8.2 rebounds and 7.1 assists.
But to Lakers coaches, going small was about unleashing what they saw as the best version of LeBron James. Russell Westbrook, who frustrated the coaching staff and fans alike with his hot-and-cold streaks, was at best, a secondary consideration. The Lakers were going to cater to James’ game; Westbrook would have to figure out his own role.
That turning point laid the foundation for where the Lakers (22-23) are at now: Since Dec. 28, James has produced MVP-quality figures, averaging 31.8 points, 9.2 rebounds and 6.1 assists on 51.6% shooting and nearly 40% from 3-point range. He’s had games when he has wrecked opponents on defense as well,averaging 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocked shots largely working from the back line of the defense where he can hunt strips from opposing big men.
Westbrook, on the other hand, has nosedived. During the same stretch, he’s averaging 15 points and shooting 37% from the field, while his playmaking numbers (6.1 apg) have dipped with the ball out of his hands more often. The one-time turnover leader of the NBA has reduced his giveaways, but that’s at least partially a function of James being the trusted distributor in crunch-time minutes.
For weeks, Westbrook cryptically groused and hinted at the shift in the dynamic – snickering when a reporter prefaced a question with the phrase “from a point guard’s perspective,” and alluding to how his positions on the court affected his game without directly explaining it. But on Wednesday night, the tense standoff reached a tipping point that probably neither Westbrook nor the coaching staff saw coming this soon.
For the last 3:52 of the 111-104 loss to the 13th-place Indiana Pacers, Westbrook watched from the bench. He did not do so quietly: The 33-year-old point guard nearly left the floor after he was subbed out for Malik Monk,but teammate DeAndre Jordan shepherded him back. Westbrook watched the next few minutes unfold, apparently jawing from the bench with his jersey untucked, although exactly what was said (and at whom) is still unclear.
ESPN was first to report that the Lakers’ coaching staff was sanctioned by management to bench Westbrook if they deemed it necessary. That is a crushing blow not only to Westbrook’s well-chronicled pride, but also the team’s thinking behind the offseason trade for the 2017 MVP. Franchises don’t trade for perennial All-Stars and pay them $44 million to bench them in the fourth quarter. Westbrook was meant to be a third star to lift the Lakers’ title aspirations – his benching only made clear that the coaching staff views him with skepticism at best, and naked distrust at worst.
Westbrook hadn’t helped himself: While he made four 3-pointers, he was 1 for 11 from the field when shooting inside the arc, the very domain where he’s historically dominated. This coincides with a decline in his overall scoring ability: Stat site Cleaning the Glass shows that Westbrook is shooting just 55% at the rim (last season he shot 65%) and the 10-game average of his effective field goal percentage (shooting percentage that adds weight for 3-point prowess) has sunk well below 40% (league average is just over 50%).
Lost amid the excitement of Westbrook’s dunk over Utah 7-footer Rudy Gobert on Monday night: The highlight-worthy slam is his only dunk of 2022. His converted dunks have dipped every month of the season, from four in October, to three in November, to two in December.
That paints a damning portrait of a man who has historically been one of the league’s best scorers and distributors. But his ability to do both has suffered, and in other areas, he has struggled to do what has been asked of him. ESPN reported that a botched coverage on Indiana’s Caris LeVert, who scored 22 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter, was the “last straw” for the coaching staff’s patience for Westbrook.
That seeped through in Vogel’s brutally honest assessment of why Westbrook sat the last four minutes: “Playing the guys that I thought were going to win the game.”
There is much more context to the precarious nature of the Lakers’ season of course. Vogel’s job security has rested on a knife’s edge since the beginning of the year given his lukewarm one-year contract extension, and disagreements between the coaching staff and the front office have continued over other players on the roster – not just Westbrook. Even though the small-ball configuration has brought forth an MVP-level James, others in the organization have questioned the approach, particularly as the defense has faltered recently.
But now Westbrook’s future with the Lakers emerges as the most pressing question. Not only is he a maximum contract player this year, next season he has the power to opt into a $47.1 million contract, taking up more than a third of the Lakers’ salary cap. That’s a substantial investment in a player who, as things stand, doesn’t have the trust to play out the closing minutes of a close game. To the extent that the playoffs are a realistic goal for the Lakers in their current state, how do close playoff games unfold if the Lakers must constantlysub out their highest-paid player? And how does Westbrook, one of the most famously inflexible and willful players in the NBA, take that sitting down?
The situation has forced some of the most high-profile players into a difficult position. When asked directly about how Vogel has handled reports of his job being in jeopardy, James balked at saying anything definitive.
“I’m not in that business, of pointing fingers or pointing blame or trying to put a quote at the end or at the start … of someone’s commentary of what they feel our coaching staff is, or where Frank is, or where Russ is, or where I’m at, or A.D.,” he said. “If it’s not positive for me, I’m cool. It’s not my lane. I’m not a negative person.”
Carmelo Anthony, who also paired up with Westbrook in Oklahoma City, was a little more forthcoming about Westbrook’s dilemma.
“I don’t think it’s nothing personal; it’s just something that he’s not used to,” Anthony said. “You would think somebody like that would be on the court. But with the flow of the game, there’s been times I haven’t been in the game or other guys haven’t been in the game. So I don’t think it’s anything personal. It’s just something that Russ gotta – we gotta help him figure it out.
Added Anthony: “It’s frustrating. I can tell you that. It’s frustrating as a player who’s trying to make it right, trying to do things right. This is new for him. This is a new situation. This is a new environment. We gotta help him through it.”
If Westbrook can’t get through it, it leaves the Lakers in a bind. How do you bridge a gap between an untrusting coaching staff and a prideful star? Instead of making a coaching change, the Lakers so far are steaming ahead with this uncomfortable impasse: Westbrook joined the team on the flight to Orlando on Thursday morning, along with the coaching staff and General Manager Rob Pelinka. As the Lakers begin a six-game road trip, they seem determined to try to figure a way out of the tension that seems very difficult to reconcile.
While Wednesday’s loss might have been a flashpoint, it’s a conflict that’s been a long time in the making.
– Kyle Goon
Editor’s note: Thanks for reading the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
