Highlight Russell Westbrook Refuses to join the Lakers Huddle.
Don’t even remind me of those Darvin Hamas days.
Man, he was not a good coach, but if I had to deal with Pat Bev, Rondo, and Russ everyday I would have lost my shit.
I think Rondo was gone by this point
Thats lonnie walker but yeah all involved were probably worse off for it
Haha lol, thanks for the correction. The alien head shape and buggin’ eyes got me.
Salute
We got a generational meme with Pat Bev atleast
Salute š«”š£ļø
Go hard on them dudes
Contest without foullingĀ
*puts hands in pockets
Contest without fouling!
https://imgur.com/2yiCgqO
foulling*
The first time i heard “pockets the clown” I sat there laughing out loud for like 5 minutes lol
But how will we know when to go hard on them dudes?
“go hard at those guys” DH? š
These days not any better bro.
Those Darvin Ham teams get to the finals if not for Jokic.
Redick is supposed to be a basketball mind, but he won’t even do defensive substitutionsĀ
Excuse me thatās inaugural NBA Cup champion winning coach Darvin Ham to you
The Westbrook Lakers were an unbelievable hatewatch this season. People revise the history a lot now to dump on Lakers fans for āmistreatingā him, but dude was completely abysmal and had a horrible attitude/mindset about it. I also attended a home Lakers game during that season and the fans were by and large rooting for him and cheering for him every time he touched the ball. They wanted him to succeed, he just stunk.
Obviously LA should NOT have traded for him but goddamn he did not try at all to try to fit in or contribute to winning. The only season I just couldnāt watch the team.
win, lose, or draw have fun
Lebron looking at him lol
Like it was a scene from The Office it was just perfectly timed
[deleted]
bro just replied to himself? nice
Thatās been his MO since he left the insulation of playing in Oklahoma. After KD left that org did its best and worked hard to preserve his happiness and maximize his output (even though it was counterintuitive to winning at times). I think he still thinks heās got the ability to do what he did at his peak but ignores the fact that it was a full organization push to showcase him
He was all-NBA with the Rockets and got robbed out of one with the Wizards. What kind of nonsensical argument is this “organizational push”, rofl.
He was the last person to make it onto the All NBA team in a shortened year. Big asterisk with Middleton and Embiid getting more total points in their votes but him making it in there as guard with position locks. I get it tho man, heās your guy. You can bounce on it and do tricks and ignore that guys like Kanter and Adams were giving him rebounds to pad his stats. He had a 41.7% USG(!!!!!!!!) in 16-17. He damn near had the ball in his sole possession for half on the time that season. He better have a quadruple double ballhogging that much. Just for reference, and I know this will really piss you off: Jokic in his best MVP season 21-22 has a 32% USG. His championship year, he had a 27% USG. He did these things better than Westbrook with a slightly better or equal cast, with zero athleticism, at a harder time to win; than Westbrook ever did.
He made all-NBA because he averaged 27-8-7 (you know, LeBron’s career average). Position lock has negatively impacted his all-NBA status with unskilled bum centers getting 1st team while had to compete with all-time greats guards like Steph Harden CP3 and the end of his prime Kobe. The season was shortened right as he was picking up steam and was averaging 33 pts for the stretch prior to its stoppage.
Kanter and Adams didn’t statpad his scoring title, or his 2nd place in the assisting title, or him leading offensive rebounds as a guard. Of fucking course he had the ball in his hands, that team was a black-hole without him. OKC had like a -200 plus minus without him in the playoffs that year, that’s how lost they were without him. Andre Roberson was the 2nd best scorer in the playoffs that year. Imagine other 0 offensive game having player like Vanderbilt or Thybulle being the 2nd best scorer on a playoff team.
And no, it doesn’t piss me off because I’m not a drooling worthless loser hating on players who’s getting clubbered on his head for it like you. Jokic is an ATG and possibly the best offensive player ever. I respect him like I respect players that are not as good as him.
all time stat padder
Literally had AD playing Center and LeBron playing PF off the ball. What more could he want?
It’s amazing how your exact comment will get down voted to hell in a Westbrook praise post.
He was friends with Ad and bron before joining the team. He did try it just didnt work out and being scapegoated didnt help
He was at that odd point in his career where he lost a lot of his athleticism and cdnt figure out how to adjust. He was bricking lay ups just as badly as he was bricking shots.
He had a game winning dunk attempt against the nets and you just know that he wasnāt gonna get up high enough. Was sad to see cause thatās a highlight if he wasnāt this version of Russ
Yeh it sucked. Young Russ was so fun to watch. I wanted to see that version on the lakers, unfortunately his body just didnāt have that kind of juice anymore
The version you guys had was still good enough to drag a team. Not surprising though that a physical specimen player reliant on athleticism falls off sudden
Yeh he was nice on the wizards but he was also badly injured. I think playing through that injury destroyed his athleticism. Dragging the wizards to the playoffs mightāve done the same thing to him that dragging the Pistons did to Blake. They both fell off so hard after those carry jobs
Didnāt he have a hand injury or something he was recovering from.
his shooting hand has been broken a couple times throughout his career
I donāt remember that. That cdāve played into it too if he did, but the sudden loss of athleticism was very evident. He was attempting things that he used to be able to execute bc of his athleticism and he just cdnt anymore.
On another note I remember LeBron went through very similar things at the start of 2020. He was missing layups he used to make, but he adjusted as the season went on. Westbrook just cdnt figure it out.
Its insane the Lakers traded for him. Russ and LeBron is a terrible fit.Ā
Post peak Russ really isn’t a good fit with anyone I’m afraid.
Agreed. I wasn’t even a Lakers fan and I was genuinely pissed off when I watched that 2023 game against the Sixers where Russ iso’d and tried to drive against Embiid then bricked a layup with 12 seconds remaining instead of calling a timeout.
if it’s the game I’m thinking of then Embiid closed his hand around Russ’ wrist and the refs didn’t call a foul. That came during a stretch of close Lakers loses in which the refs swallowed their whistles on some bs.
Thank you for the correct take. Itās insane anyone defends Westbrookās Lakers days. He was horrific. There is no sugarcoating it.
I desperately need a montage of moments like this from that stretch
I remember there was an airball & bad miss montage from that era. I love Westbrook but man he was atrocious that year and on a max contract.
Turning the ball over and staring at his hands still fills me with rage.
Agree, when we traded for him we already knew the fit was weird but never expected him so be this abysmal. Sucks that he declined so badly because he was the only saving grace of the 16-17 season and always wanted him to succeed
it was every single night man, it felt like he couldnāt even accidentally muster up a great game
I went to the Lakers/Wizards game in March of 22 where LeBron put up 50. It was absolutely unbelievable how bad Russ was in person. He was missing everything. 5 points on 2 of 11 from the field, 1 of 4 from the line. in 31 minutes.
LeBron was 18-25 and dropped 50/7/6 in that game. He was fucking insane that night.
To add to Westbrook sucking ass that season , DeMar who was one of the Lakersā main target , had a fucking incredible season
So yeah DeMar being a MVP candidate and Westbrook sucking so much ass that season was not a good combo
Slammed the door on the LeBron/AD era shut entirely.
Watching them absolutely stink it up was one of my favorite NBA experiences. You couldnt find a single person that likes this team. All the sports shows gave them zero mercyš
Exactly how Iām going to feel watching Paul George and the Celtics this season LOL
What? Everytime he touched the ball the crowd yelled Westbrick. He was not well received by the laker fan base.
Nah I went to a bunch of games that year. We weren’t calling him Westbrick whenever he touched the ball, but we were yelling NOOOOOOOOO whenever he was shooting 3s lol
So yāall werenāt rooting for him. Lmao
He then proceeded to do 1 year stints with on other teams. But somehow itās not on Russ
There are people that hate LeBron delusionally to the point where they defend Darvin Ham and Westbrook whoās been on like 10 teams and nobody ever wants to keep him lmao
The “Lebron wanted Russ” meme has also been debunked for years but people don’t care. LeBron wanted DeRozan but Rob wouldn’t sign him to 3 years, another example of him not committing to win with LeBron
How has it been debunked? After LeBron couldn’t get DeRozan and possibly Beal and Lillard, reports have him talking with WB to bring him to the Lakers. They’re not mutually exclusive, the other trades didn’t work out so he turned to WB. IIRC him and AD even invited WB around to LeBron’s place in LA.
This recent article mentions it and there’s a few more from a couple years back that discuss the whole thing too.
But if you have the proof it’s been debunked, in happy to change my mind.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10009168-lakers-rumors-lebron-james-demar-derozan-spoke-about-teaming-before-westbrook-trade
LeBron was in the middle of talks with DeRozan when the Westbrook trade happened. Pelinka wanted cap flexibility because he was already thinking past LeBron at that point. LeBron most likely signed off on Westrbook, but he never recruited Westbrook like he did Lillard and DeRozan. People can downvote all they want, the meme is established, I know
should I remind everyone in this thread that these were all rumors
nobody actually knows how these conversations went down. LeGM shit has always been speculative and rumor based. Sources are always undisclosed, these stories can all be rumors from a Lakers janitor for all we know or from someone who was intentionally fed bad information. We’ll never actually know how this stuff goes down
see but that take is way too boring for this sub
Tbf if Russ was choice 3 or 4 itās hard to really say LeBron wanted him. At that point Iām sure itās more they wanted someone reputable than they wanted Russ specifically
He probably should’ve stopped trying to recruit someone himself then and leave it up to the front office rather than go down the phone book.
Yeah you’re right, LeBron also shouldn’t have recruited AD to the Lakers, and just let the front office stick it out with Ingram and Ball.
This sub…
Thereās also a good amount of Russ fans who try to downplay anything he ever did poorly
Thunder fans you mean. Itās hilarious how they fly in to defend him in these threads but never wanted him back in OKC lol
Yep, thatās my brother-in-law.
Such a childish man-baby. Imagine making 50 million a year and still throwing a fit about respect out there.
2 best players goes to huddle called by pat bev and he cant even be bothered
Those one year stints started before lakers tenure if Iām not mistaken
Correctā¦ LA was the third team. Houston, then Washington, then LA.
Harden told him to ditch Houston cause he was leaving. He also chose to leave the Wiz and told Brad to run. everything after the lakers for sure tho
Yeah but the two one-year stints before he was still good. He averaged a triple double and receiving MVP votes in Washington the year before he went to LA
Still can’t believe him and pat bev were on the same team together
ya pretty sure this is the reason for him not wanting to huddle cause Pat was the one to call for it
Lmao, theyāre actually good friends now
They got along really well while on the Lakers
They were friends at this point
Itās that Darvin Hamas strategy
Pretty sure thatās Lonnie Walker.
Shit u right
“Why doesn’t any team want him”?
He was a bad fit with the Lakers guys. Well, heās a bad fit with all NBA teams. But he was also a bad fit with the Lakers
Is 3.3M karma just you spamming in any Russ hate threads lol?
Well shit, this explains why RES shows that I’ve upvoted him so many times
Nuggets? Wait
Like only 20 players in the entire NBA history have played 19 seasons in the league. And there are still rumours linking him to current teams.
I may never hate a player more than I hated him this season
Lakers fans were shouting “NOOOOO” every time he attempted a jumper, it was surreal
Deadass some of the funniest basketball terrorism ever
not this guy!
This was the season after that season.
Both
Well we were the 13 seed when we traded him so it wasn’t really any different with him
Same, which sucks cause in his prime he was probably my favorite player to watch.
I donāt understand why a team would put up with shit like this. The average freshman basketball player has better teamwork skills.
Heāll always be Westbrick to me because of this diva behavior
Win, lose, or draw - just have fun! Thanks Russ.
But heās such a great teammate and locker room guy!!!
/s
āHeās just a little overpaid on a max but still good valuable playerā
Dinosaurs eat man
Woman inherits the earth
Russ was clearly the problem that year. He never gives up on his triple double shit.
“I think it’s unfortunate, to be honest, because I’ve never had an issue with any of my coaches before,” Westbrook said on Monday after his exit interview with the Lakers’ front office. “I’m not sure what his issue was with me or I’m not sure why, but I can’t really give you an answer to why we really never connected.” “Just my play in general, not my best season, just going off my own personal scale,” he said. “Obviously I’m coming off averaging a triple-double, so anything less than that would not be a good season for me in my eyes, you know what I’m saying? So that’s why the scale of where it comes from is a little bit different.”
“I think it’s unfortunate, to be honest, because I’ve never had an issue with any of my coaches before,” Westbrook said on Monday after his exit interview with the Lakers’ front office. “I’m not sure what his issue was with me or I’m not sure why, but I can’t really give you an answer to why we really never connected.”
“Just my play in general, not my best season, just going off my own personal scale,” he said. “Obviously I’m coming off averaging a triple-double, so anything less than that would not be a good season for me in my eyes, you know what I’m saying? So that’s why the scale of where it comes from is a little bit different.”
Even at vet minimum just not worth the risk of his egoĀ
Who tf was playing the 3 in this lineup lol
Lonnie Walker?
Nah he was the IV.
6’4 small forward absolutely cursed roster that year
i remember vogel ran a lineup of IT, Russ, and rondo on the court together man.
that lakers team won october 2020, in one year it was awfully constructed and heavily injured disaster
Solid screen from DLo. Sneaky connective piece
I thought he was a great teammate š
He’s a great teammate when he gets to be the “leader”. He has proven to be very stubborn and kind of fragile when he’s asked to be a follower.
Watching people do mental gymnastics to blame this stint on Lebron and the lakers will always be hilarious
Then there are people who will genuinely tell you that Russ was scapegoated. He wasn’t a good fit for the team but let’s not pretend like he was guilt free from criticism. Every time he shot the ball, the crowd was SCREAMING “NO” and he didn’t disappoint with an air ball or brick. He was a bad fit but he was also a bad player. This is another example of why Lakers fans don’t like him or even brand his year+ on the team as the WORST YEAR+ in the history of the team.
Now we wait for the counter jerkĀ
This who the Kings want to mentor Acuff
Itās the kings, im surprised they donāt want to bring gilbert arenas back from retirement to mentor him instead
“He’s a great mentor, why doesn’t any team want him?”
Damn he was so toxic on the Lakers.
Good teammate huh
Corny. I remember when the Nuggets did this to Aaron Gordon
Did what? Refuse to join an AG huddle?
Yeah he tried to call a huddle on the court and the whole team pretty much ignored him until he just gave up and kinda threw his hands up
We gonna ignore that soft ass foul call?
Unbelievable that a team thought Russ and Bev should be on the same team.
Pat bev fucked Russā knee up. Westbrook has always had that āI took it personallyā MJ energy. No way that man is ever gonna listen to a Pat Bev huddle
Laker fans being extremely happy after getting Dlo just shows how messed up russ was with the team
He’s one of the few guys who is such a dick on the court that it convinces me he’s a dick off the court too. I know it isn’t true, he does a lot of great community work, but mane is just such an asshole
Pat Bev always tryna be a leader but nobody wanna hear that rara shit from a role player.
Yet LeBron and AD are all ears.
Yeah cuz public image and all. Can you imagine what the media would say if lebron ignored him?
Nothing’s real
Reminds me of my schizophrenic brother
this era of the lakers was primetime for rdcworld videos
Feels if this was younger russ pairing lebron and him would work but this was russ that was declining athletically
Such a team guy. Always shows up and gives you his best effort.š¤£š¤£š¤£ Russ fans are so lost sometimes
Russ defenders will blame it on the coaching.
Proven right by a post seconds after yours
When people say they could never hate Russ. I could. He was atrocious in many different ways for us. Totally shut the LeBron/AD era window closed
Russ, KD and Harden the goat big 3 of thin skin, pettiness and “I’m him” mentality I’ve ever seen.
Even if OKC didn’t trade Harden, there is no way theses dudes would’ve worked together lol
You said this yet leave out Kyrie who is way more thin skinned then harden
Nah
The Burner, the System, and the Brick.
I canāt stand westbrick and his crying baby attitude when things donāt go his way.
He’s such a child.
This entire sub the last three months.
Needs a Shaq poop post somewhere there.
Cmon we had some Jaylen Brown stuff in there too.
Jaden. McDaniels.
looks to me like he doesn’t want to get aggressively waved into a huddle by pat bev. i don’t blame him i wouldn’t want to entertain whatever pat bev had to say in that huddle either. delusional meets delusional. i just know they hated each other.
Can’t pretend like him and Beverly don’t have history
All kinds of problems with this play. Lebron not challenging entry pass in. Beverly not communicating or helping with switch. Back side D doing absolutely nothing. AD with hands at his waste as usual.
Prime example of a team not playing connected D.
I honestly think this team had the worst vibes of any LeBron team. Even the 2018 Cavs, who were highly dysfunctional, never felt this bad.
How can you pay attention to what fans are saying about you if your are to busy in a team huddle??
Another hit by LeGM.
If I was a coach I would have bench him right away for the whole game
My guess is Beverly was supposed to switch (every team plays picks differently) then tried to call a huddle after he messed up.
If thatās the case, then I donāt blame Russ.
This was when undisputed skip and Shannon was peak. The Russ lowlight reels were too funny.
Jaden always been a bucket.
“but he buys everybody watches and asks about their families.” bulls#it. you can’t be nice some of the time and a jerk the rest of the time. that makes you 100% jerk.
Canāt believe Lebron made the Lakers get him.
Brick was such a fucking bitch
I love Russ, but there’s no excuse for this. Even if his excuse was some bullshit like “Let’s just play the game.” or something, not joining that huddle not only dissipated the huddle, but also the morale.
Look at how every one of this teammates was willing to come together for a moment and rally. Yet, Russ refusing to join in immediately kills it.
Wedtbrick is such a betch
š
lol Westbrook knew it was pointless
He was prob tired of Pats shit. He had a decent next year with the clippers
Lol
Obviously a biased Thunder fan here so Iāll say it fuck Pat Bev. Westbrook is the man
Westbrook was never a winning player. NBA just refused to acknowledge that fact for a long time.
what team did he hold back lol? he hasnt played a main role on a contender in years.
I still think that this team couldāve been a title contender if they didnāt make that Westbrook trade
Good!
If i was Westbrook and I got told that I would be joining the lakers to take playmaking burdens from LeBronā¦ just to be relegated by Darvin Ham to be a CORNER SHOOTER, yeah I wouldnāt wanna join any team huddles or anything. Darvin Ham has the coaching creativity of a pre-cognizant infant.
And yet on another post, people will act like the Lakers/LeBron did Russ dirty
And people wonder why no one has signed him yet. If youāve never had him on your team it sure is easy to advocate for someone to sign him. I challenge the people who wonder this to advocate their own team to sign him. Itās always āthe bulls should sign himā from non bulls fans or something similar
This particular season actually killed my joy for basketball and I have not consistently watched since.
Was dragged to a home game during that season and I’ll never forget everyone yelling “DONT SHOOT” every single time he touched the ball. It was hilarious yet embarrassing.
Team player right? He goes hard for his team na he goes hard for himself
“Not a muscle in sight, but this man is strong. And hes gotten stronger every single year.” -Richard Jefferson
Not sure if this is a compliment or slight lol.