It’s no secret most people consider the Los Angeles Lakers’ Russell Westbrook experiment to be a failure.
He had his good moments, but, overall, his play was up and down, perhaps partly due to so many key injuries that never allowed him to become comfortable with his teammates.
But most feel Westbrook’s year with the Lakers was a failure because of his questionable decision-making, poor outside shooting, defensive indifference, allegedly poor attitude toward teammates and coaches and the steep price the team paid to acquire him last summer.
During his exit interview, although Westbrook didn’t really take responsibility for his shortcomings, he admitted, at least in an offhand manner, that he didn’t have a good season.
However, his reasoning is something Lakers fans didn’t want to hear.
Via Lakers Nation:
“Yeah, I mean, it’s different man, you know, it’s like. It’s a skill that I knew that I would have to kind of figure out. Like, yes, I will now have the ball in my hands a lot less, I’ll be in different position on the floor. And that’s a part of the sacrifice. So that will obviously accumulate to numbers being a little differently, and not averaging as many points or not averaging many assists. So that’s what I mean by being able to scale and understand my performance, and kind of what I see where I could have done different things better.
“And obviously, I could have had a better season but based on the positions and how we played and where I was out on the floor, wasn’t really able to do some of the things that I was able to do. Even last year, like 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 how it come from is a little different.”
Westbrook’s comment seemed to confirm what many around the league have suspected of him for years.