Lakers Rumors: Are Russell Westbrook's L.A. Days Still Numbered?

Could Westbrook's ill-fated stint with his hometown team be coming to an end during the regular season?

After your Los Angeles Lakers almost traded $47.1 million point guard Russell Westbrook for Indiana Pacers vets Myles Turner and Buddy Hield ahead of the team's preseason, all L.A. personnel involved were careful to say the right things, stressing that Westbrook was considered a key player on the current team.

This writer never quite believed that, and assumed Los Angeles was still hoping to send Westbrook and some level of future draft equity out to another club in exchange for quality depth or a top-line star, but it just felt uncomfortable about the cost of doing business for those particular Pacers.

Appearing in an NBA Today segment (h/t to Clutch Points), Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN offered up some juicy intel about Westbrook's prognosis with Los Angeles:

“The Lakers at some point here will start engaging teams again on possible Russell Westbrook trades. They paused it at the start of training camp.”@wojespn on the Lakers’ plans 👀
https://t.co/hEMt6vvN2k

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) October 14, 2022

Here's the meat of that quote:

“The Lakers at some point here will start engaging teams again on possible Russell Westbrook trades. They paused it essentially at the start of training camp... It gets a little quiet here [during the preseason]. Teams are putting their rosters together, making their cuts, and then seeing what it looks like."

As we previously indicated, out-of-this-world 7'4" No. 1 2023 draft prospect Victor Wembanyama proved to be so spectacular during two exhibition bouts against the No. 2 prospect next year, G League Ignite point guard Scoot Henderson, that teams may try to tank in more frequency and earlier than usual. Should that happen this season, Los Angeles may be able to make a splashier, more favorable trade than was possible prior to this Wembanyama development

Maybe holding on to Westbrook and the two first-round picks in 2027 and 2029 until they can find a trade package of grumpy star is the best play for the Lakers' front office after all. It's also quite possible that the draft equity asking amount could decline as teams get increasingly more desperate to worsen their own on-court output.

In the mean time, Westbrook has been fairly professional about the whole process, and appears a bit more amenable to accepting his possible (optimal) new role as a reserve.