He still is capable of having great games every now and then, as most former stars are. It’s why he dropped 40 twice against the Celtics in the playoffs last year. The issue with him is surviving all the other games where he isn’t on, like the other 5 games in that Boston series where he only shot 25% from the field and 15% from 3.
Yep. Whenever I see Clipper fans talking about what a “promising young prospect he is” I say “yeah, imagine what his 5 ppg could blossom into when he’s in his mid 30s in a couple years.”
All the injuries and surgeries and just age seem like they’ve finally caught up with him. Happens to everyone eventually, but it seems like his prime was ended prematurely due to all the other stuff.
PG would be great as a Chris Bosh type on a Lebron/Wade Heat team.
PG had the chance to sign a max deal with the Lakers the year that LeBron did, but instead he re-signed with OKC with the understanding that they’d happily trade him if he changed his mind. That Laker team could have had both LeBron and PG plus all the assets they used to flip for AD just one year later. The 2018 Lakers would have had LeBron, PG, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, KCP, Josh Hart, Kyle Kuzma, Alex Caruso and Ivicia Zubac. He’d almost surely have a couple rings by now. What a waste.
The Clippers also waived Eric Gordon this past summer and he’s been playing pretty well in Phoenix.
Lakers should’ve never let Zubac and Caruso go
The Lakers’ front office has been such an utterly bizarre mix of great moves and horrible ones over the last few years (really going back two different FOs ago). The Zubac trade was obviously bad as soon as Magic made it, and I still don’t understand why Pelinka placed so little value on Caruso as to just let him walk when he would have been cheap to re-sign. Other boneheaded moves were letting Brook Lopez walk when it only would have taken about $3m to re-sign him, letting Julius Randle walk in FA when his rookie contract ended, and obviously the trade to get Westbrook.
Rui just had surgery to fix a broken nose basically and is supposed to be re-evaluated next week, and Vanderbilt got cleared to begin workouts a while back and is just working himself back into shape. Getting Cam Reddish back would also help a lot of these issues, and he should be back soon too.
A big part of the Lakers’ rebounding issues is because they’ve been forced to play Taurean Prince starters minutes due to all the injuries. He has some positive qualities, but he’s a horrendous rebounder for a forward. If the Lakers were at full strength, he likely wouldn’t even be in the rotation, as he’d probably be the 10th or 11th man.
Full strength the Laker rotation would probably be AD, LeBron, Vanderbilt, Reddish and D’lo starting, with Reaves, Vincent, Rui, Wood and Hayes off the bench. Prince and Max Christie (who have both been starting) would probably mostly fall out of the rotation except in garbage time or very limited minutes.
The problem is for guys like him that never really could shoot all that well, the fall off is hard
Honestly his bigger problem is really just mental. I mean, yeah, if he ever could have developed a reliable jump shot that would have helped, but some players just never become good shooters, no matter how much they work on it. His problem is not terribly unique, he’s just a former star who doesn’t seem to be able to adjust his mindset to playing like a role player.
These guys make it to the NBA because of their supreme confidence in their ability, and what Westbrook needs most right now is to honestly acknowledge his limitations and just accept what he can and can’t do. If he simply dedicated himself to being someone who focused mostly on incredibly tough defense and rebounding, he’d still be very valuable out there. But instead he still thinks he’s the guy that won the MVP and can contribute most by scoring and handling the ball a lot.
Look, Laker fans have been hearing for the last year about how poorly they treated Westbrook when he was on the team, and how grateful people are that he got away from such a toxic fanbase and is now playing for fans who love him, etc. So seeing these new fans treat him like this to where he gets into an altercation with a Clipper fan at a Clipper home game for calling him the same “Westbrick” name that he said he was so upset about last year… Surely you can understand Laker fans being like “see, it’s not just us!”
“Please somebody give me hundreds of millions of dollars! I have thousands of strippers to put through college!”
I left out the Sixers cause I simply do not see any chance where Morey and Harden join up again. It would be hilarious if Harden had to slink back to Philly on the cheap after all the shit he pulled though lol
Yep. His record with Kawhi and PG last year was only 5-5, and the Clippers had a worse record after getting WB than they had before they signed him. Plus for all the talk about the “great playoffs” he had, he led them to a 5 game 1st round exit. He was stuffing the stat sheet with empty stats that just led to losses. It wasn’t much different than what he did in Washington.
If it’s not looking like Ballmer is gonna give Harden his big payday, then you can pretty much guarantee Harden is gonna demand a trade. His whole point in going to the Clippers was because he believed they were the team most likely to give him his max.
Yep. And on top of that, due to being a 2nd apron team, the Clippers will also be unable to purchase anymore picks as well, and will only be able to offer free agents minimum contracts in the off-seasons.
I definitely didn’t say it was a “moral victory”. That was a curb stomping, but at least they lost to a team they probably should have lost to. In the end, it’s just one loss, and hopefully they’ll have all or most of their injured players back soon. I don’t know what the Clippers are telling themselves after this though.
Does this mean the Clippers have him playing off ball more than he has in 8 years? I thought they brought him in to run the offense?