Lakers Coaching Staff Wanted To Deal Russell Westbrook At Trade Deadline

The Los Angeles Lakers have been an absolute mess this season. An incredibly talented roster with names like LeBron James and Russell Westbrook was expected to contend for an NBA championship. The team looks like they might miss the playoffs instead.

There has been a lack of chemistry among the Lakers all year. Russell Westbrook has become frustrated at times. Nothing was ever done to add or change the makeup of the squad.

Things seem like they have no chance of improving. It was as if the front office has been delusional about the way things are going. It turns out that the Lakers coaching staff did advocate for a huge shakeup. The Athletic has reported that they tried their hardest to trade Russell Westbrook ahead of the NBA trade deadline.

“Sources say the coaching staff made an unsuccessful push for Westbrook to be traded before the Feb. 10 deadline, when the Lakers passed on Houston’s John Wall, in part, because of the draft considerations that it would have required to make the deal. There were also significant concerns about the fact that Wall hadn’t played all season and, thus, didn’t instill confidence in his ability to help the Lakers turn their season around.

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Yet now, it appears, the friction between Westbrook and the coaching staff has only grown worse. Sources confirmed the recent rising of tensions between Westbrook and the coaching staff, which were first reported by Marc Stein. If only for a night, Westbrook’s 20-point, four-assist, four-rebound, plus-13 outing against the Warriors on Saturday offered a reminder that he is capable of being part of the solution. But the performance was an outlier, to say the least.”

Russell Westbrook’s schism with the Lakers coaching staff could be a huge reason why the team is struggling this year. A move would have made a lot of sense and could have potentially brought a youth movement to a quickly-aging roster. The deal didn’t get done, and now the Lakers will have to deal with the awkward tension for the rest of the season.

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