It’s easy to hate on Russell Westbrook and the Los Angeles Lakers these days – and it seems like everyone is doing just that.
The team and Westbrook have had a very rough season and are doing far, far worse than people expected.
But as former NBA head coach Stan Van Gundy has pointed out, Westbrook isn’t nearly as awful as some are suggesting.
In fact, he’s pretty much doing exactly what he promised to do.
Russell Westbrook is having the season the Lakers should have expected. His FG% is exactly his career average and his Effective FG% is a little higher than average while his 3% is down a little. His turnovers are his lowest in 8 years and he is still averaging 18.3/7.8/7.5.
— Stan Van Gundy (@realStanVG) February 22, 2022
Van Gundy made a good point to his Twitter followers, saying how Westbrook’s field-goal percentage is in line with his career average while his effective field-goal percentage is in fact a little higher than what’s come before.
Additionally, Van Gundy said that his three-point percentage does happen to be a little bit down from his career average but his turnovers are the lowest they have been in eight years.
In other words, Westbrook isn’t the problem that some people make him out to be.
Lots Of Lacking In LA
Sure enough, Van Gundy is correct: Westbrook is having a season that is aligned with the ones he’s experienced before.
While it is true that he started the year with much more inconsistency, he is now performing at the levels he has before.
That means that all of LA’s woes can’t be blamed on Westbrook.
There is no denying that – the entire team is a mess and it’s beyond the veteran guard.
In fact, Westbrook has become something of a scapegoat for all the things dragging the Lakers down.
The biggest problem with Westbrook is his bloated contract, which means the team is pretty much stuck with the lineup it has now and can’t execute any meaningful trades.
All of this means that Westbrook isn’t leaving LA any time soon – and the team needs to find other ways to sort out its problems.
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