The addition of patrick Beverley got everyone excited, but following that many fans are now looking for more and for a bigger move to happen as well and that move would undoubtedly involve Russell Westbrook, who continues to be mentioned in trade rumors practically every day even after their attempt to acquire Kyrie Irving fell through they did not stop trying to trade Westbrook.
If anything it almost appears like they’ve been trying harder not that it’s all that surprising either after all it’s been reported that the beginning of training camp, is their quote unquote soft deadline to trade Westbrook another report indicated, that they even tried to trade him prior to acquiring patrick Beverley, as they apparently tried to get involved in a Donovan Mitchell trade, now there’s no concrete answer to what they would have gotten here.
But it does appear that in addition to patrick Beverley, they were interested in Bojan bogdanovic, Jordan Clarkson and maybe even Malik Beasley and while that obviously fell through due to Utah, New York continuing to negotiate the lakers made a trade with Utah anyways, and as we know that became patrick Beverley with training camp, only one month away they are beginning to feel the pressure to make moves, that is why they made a deal even prior to trading Westbrook.
But if that deal or rather the player included in that deal, can tell us anything it’s that, they are undoubtedly trying to trade Westbrook at this point, I think we all know the history between patrick Beverly and Russell Westbrook, they have never liked each other and it’s gone far beyond the court as well and although Patrick Beverley has already been trying to make up for that by quote tweeting, lebron’s support for russ, highly doubt that they truly want to be teammates not only that though, but i don’t the lakers would want to risk that either it’s one thing to give a compliment over twitter.
But it’s another thing entirely to put them against each other during training camp up until this point we have heard nothing from Westbrook about the addition of Beverley, and i cannot imagine he wants to play with him after pat bev threw, the last punch in their ongoing feud during one of the many rough patches that russ had with the lakers, patrick Beverley tweeted out i remember when somebody said all i do is run around, and trick y’all well my boy is the real magician this year, and i really doubt that Westbrook has forgotten let alone forgiven that either in reality though it does not appear that, they will even be given the chance to team up according to the athletic, the arrival of patrick Beverly has made it more likely that Westbrook will be off the roster, and that is not only dependent on a trade either rather than allowing him to return if they cannot find a good deal for him another possibility would be giving him the John Wall.
Rockets treatment or in other words paying him to stay home and not play, if that report can be believed then the addition of patrick Beverley was truly the nail in the coffin not only, because of their prior history but from Beverley being able to replace them too they likely did not feel confident in their point guard death before adding him, but now they obviously do it would have been tough entering the year with only lebron, Kendrick Nunn and austin Rivers to play a point guard, especially with Kendrick Nunn coming off a bad injury, all of that changed after acquiring patrick Beverley though, he may not be the greatest play maker in the world, but he is a proven option at point guard and that is more than can be said for anyone other than lebron.
Which likely gave the lakers the confidence they needed to completely part with russ, i imagine they are hoping for that to be through a trade but given the details of this report it’s appearing more and more likely that they are simply done with them now they obviously cannot become a contender unless they trade him but there is an argument to be made about them being better without him, unfortunately he is simply a poor fit for their team, and they quite obviously did not build their team with him in mind, they lack three-point shooting to put around him, he does not fit their defensive mentality, and he cannot fill the off ball role, they want him to either, i mean i hate the idea of paying a guy not to play but this might be one of the rare times that makes sense hopefully, it does not come down to that though, i don’t think we can rule it out either what do you guys think though do you believe the addition of patrick Beverley was the nail in the coffin for us, or do you think they could somehow make it work let me know your thoughts by commenting down below.