| In one way, and almost certainly one way only, the Los Angeles Lakers’ season is one of perfect balance and delicate symmetry. They’ve won 16 games. They’ve lost 16 games. There you go … balance. Outside of that, there is virtually no order at all in how things are shaking out in Lakerland, where a level of on-court dysfunction that truthfully, wasn’t entirely unexpected, has come to pass as the campaign edges towards its midway point. Smack in the middle of the conversation on what’s going wrong is where you can find Russell Westbrook, the ultimate conundrum on a team that’s trying to solve its core puzzle — and not doing a very good job of it. Westbrook is a true enigma and a uniquely explosive player even at the age of 33. Voted to the NBA’s list of top 75 all-time performers, he has averaged a triple-double across an entire season four times, most recently last year with the Washington Wizards. And yet, after Los Angeles tumbled to a third straight loss — 108-90 at home to the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday — he is increasingly being seen as one of the primary causes of the team’s stuttering start and a level of form that doesn’t look to be getting much better. “(He) is a disaster for your basketball team,” FS1’s Skip Bayless said on “Undisputed.” “He is completely out of control in so many different ways, that your only hope to have a semblance of a team that could actually contend … you’ve got to get rid of him at some point.” Westbrook has averaged 19.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 8.2 assists since joining the Lakers as the third superstar behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis. General manager Rob Pelinka admitted recently that a primary reason for acquiring Westbrook was to add a ball-handler to take the strain off James, who is approaching two decades in the league. What has become clear is that James, Westbrook and Davis, who will now miss significant time with an MCL sprain, aren’t meshing particularly well. Westbrook and James might be long-time friends, but that doesn’t make them good dance partners on the court. Most pertinently, Westbrook has the league’s highest tally of turnovers — 146 across 32 games — a nightmarish statistic for a team that doesn’t play particularly good defense. Against Phoenix, he coughed it up seven times. “Stardom is the Lakers’ program — the title banners and retired numbers positioned side-by-side in their home arena’s rafters as a constant reminder,” wrote Dan Woike in the Los Angeles Times. “But stars aren’t getting it done, at least not this group with this team, Tuesday night at Staples Center another reminder that the Lakers simply aren’t in the class of the NBA’s best teams.” As things stand, and with Davis now out, the idea of giving James significant periods of structured rest to keep him as fresh as possible for the playoffs is essentially a no-go. The Lakers are seventh in the Western Conference, with the leading trio of the Suns, the Golden State Warriors and the Utah Jazz having long sailed off into the distance. The infuriating thing for Lakers fans is that it feels like it wouldn’t take much for things to click into place. At times, it seems like it has, like when Westbrook scored 23 and the Big Three combined for 67 in a road win over the Dallas Mavericks a week ago. They haven’t won since. Further muddying the waters is the positive approach Westbrook has taken, specifically taking it upon himself to keep spirits and public belief in the team high. There is no indication that he’s been in any way disruptive since the trade, merely that his best efforts haven’t translated into the level of success the team wants. As for offloading him elsewhere, his huge contract of $91 million over two years will likely make that impossible. “I’m very optimistic,” Westbrook told reporters. “The most important part is that we stay together, never divide, never panic, never succumb to what the people on the outside of our team are saying. “Just make sure that we stay close-knit and find ways to be able to stick together through whatever it is because we’re a team that doesn’t rely on excuses. We understand the circumstance that we have in our locker room, and we got to make the best of it, it’s as simple as that.” Except, unfortunately, it’s not turning out to be a very simple story at all. An elite scorer, stats machine and genuine superstar arrived motivated to join two of the game’s best, in the city where he grew up and went to college — and wants to be. And yet, the only balance remains the fact that the Lakers are losing as often as they’re winning — and so the conundrum continues. |
