Why Are the Lakers Waiting to Trade Russell Westbrook?

Our writers break down the current state of Los Angeles's roster.

Is there a trade out there involving Russell Westbrook that turns the Lakers into contenders?

The following transcript is an excerpt from the Open Floor and Crossover podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.

Rohan Nadkarni: I love that the Lakers had to soft launch Westbrook on the bench, saving it for the last preseason game, giving their talking points to reporters, Darvin Ham’s just testing to see what Russell Westbrook can do with the second unit. Everyone knows Westbrook is gonna be coming off the bench for the Lakers this season. Everyone knows from the moment Ham got hired, he’s been hinting at minimizing his role. He's on a $47 million expiring contract. He's the highest-paid player on the team.

Listen, LeBron and AD I think can still be the heart of a very, very good basketball team. I think it's baffling the way the Lakers have constructed the roster around them, including their title team, which needed a hot Davis shooting streak to kind of win that championship.

Do you think there is a trade out there involving Russell Westbrook that turns the Lakers into contenders?

Chris Mannix: Can we just step back for a brief moment and remind everyone that the Lakers won a championship in the bubble in 2020, and then proceeded to deconstruct that whole roster? That's where all this originally began. That’s number one. …

Right now, the Lakers have operated like a team that knows they're gonna move Westbrook at some point. I think Ham is an excellent coach, the right guy for that job—is in an impossible situation. Because he's saying things, and then the team is operating differently. The team's going out there and acquiring Patrick Beverley—Westbrook’s sworn enemy. And they go and sign Dennis Schröder, another point guard. So they're operating like a team that knows Westbrook is going to be gone.

Now you asked the question, Rohan, is there a deal? Of course there is. It's the Indiana deal. It just makes way too much sense for both sides. I'm not saying that Myles Turner is some sort of savior at the five, but he is a five. He's a floor spacer—I think he'd fit in reasonably well opposite Anthony Davis—and a shot blocker. Buddy Hield. Flawed, sure. But he is like a 40% three-point shooter. And I can't name the last shooter that has not thrived playing opposite LeBron James.

That deal just makes the most sense. You've got the Lakers, who, if they don't add shooting, could get off to a really ugly start. One that could be compounded by constant questions about how Westbrook fits with this team. You got Indiana, which has no interest in winning this year, desperately wants to be in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes. And moving off Turner and Hield, and then acquiring Westbrook, probably cutting him, that puts them right in that race to the bottom.

Nadkarni: For some reason no one wants Myles Turner. I know some people are really out on him. You know what would make Myles Turner look good? If he played next to LeBron James and Anthony Davis. I bet that would help a lot.

I'm with Chris. I think they should run, not walk towards that Pacers deal. There's an argument to be made that maybe some kind of better deal shakes free. If they can somehow wait until December, teams become really desperate to tank, teams that we didn't expect to tank become really desperate and start offloading veterans. But I just don't know that they can afford to wait that long because their three-to-15 right now is bleak. It's very bleak.

Russell Westbrook and Lakers head coach Darvin Ham.  :: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

Howard Beck: It's bleak. And the question you asked, Rohan, is there a trade that could make the Lakers contenders? The answer, of course, is no. Nothing that they get for Westbrook is gonna make them contenders. It can make them better. It can make them more relevant. It could make them at least much more of a certainty to make the playoffs at least, rather than be play-in or not even make the play-in. Right now I don't know where they're falling, but I have no faith in them as currently constructed.

And at a minimum, if you do like the Pacer deal as you guys have laid out in Hield and Turner, I know there's this idea that takes them outta the running in free agency next summer. Next summer is completely irrelevant. You are not planning for a five-year window anymore. Every season that LeBron plays could be the last one where he's playing at an elite level. I know he's superhuman. I know that it seems like his possibilities are infinite. They're not. Don't wait. And if you get Turner and Hield now, they're gonna both be on expiring contracts for next season, which means at 18 million for one and I think 17 million for the other, whatever it is, you can flip them again next summer if it doesn't work out. Those are going to be better assets to use, even if they don't work out for you, than the Westbrook $47 million right now that's just a negative drag on you. And I get it, you have to give up two future picks. But again, there is no future. There's only now. You have LeBron James, one of the greatest players to ever play the game. You are obligated to do everything possible to not waste another season.

Listen, I do think there's an argument to be made to at least wait and see which other teams are willing to just give up assets in the next couple of months, give up players because they would wanna join the tankathon for Wembanyama. There might be a better deal out there. But I'm not waiting too long because by that time the season may already be off the rails.

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Chris Herring: That's my thing with this team, dating back to LeBron's first year there, when they still had Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram, and I remember being confused at that moment: Why aren't they trading these guys now? Because LeBron's only got the window he has. It's LeBron James. And obviously the first year in which they move on from them, they win a championship, they go get Davis. And it's like, O.K., so why did you waste that one year? You wanted to see what you had in those young guys, but like your elite player, maybe the best player of all time, is sitting there, getting older.

You had a playoff run in which they needed a play-in to make it to the playoffs. And then you had last year where they essentially could have, in my opinion, been in play-in position, but didn't want to embarrass themselves and just kind of let go of the rope. But either way it's bad because you're putting extra miles on these guys for a team that a lot of years now has a decent enough start, Davis gets hurt, they fall behind schedule, and then they play the rest of the season trying to play catchup in between LeBron's injuries. So the whole season you're playing at a disadvantage because you're playing with guys that even if Davis isn't old, it's almost like he is, LeBron is, and so you're relying on Russ? I just don't understand the point of it when you could get younger, when you could get guys that actually kind of work alongside these guys.

Like Howard is saying, it's like they're kicking the can down the road when LeBron is 37, about to be 38. I just don't understand why we treat him like he's a renewable resource. Not we, but the Lakers. It's just very odd to me, especially given the last time that they said, O.K., we're gonna do everything we can to kind of go all in now with LeBron, it results in a championship.

I really don't understand the point of waiting here. You've already basically gone all the way in on trying to get Davis and putting him around LeBron. You might as well go all the way with it, especially given, like was mentioned before, the guys that you would be getting from Indiana, you could then flip at some point if you needed to anyway.

Nadkarni: Here's one more of my famous trivia questions before we wrap up: How many playoff games have LeBron James and Anthony Davis combined to play in Los Angeles since they teamed up in 2019 together?

The answer: Three. They played three. ‘Cause the bubble, obviously, took place in Orlando.

And guess what? Zero in front of a full Los Angeles crowd. It's just crazy. It's just a wild situation that the Lakers have gotten themselves in.