Russell Westbrook joins LeBron James and Anthony Davis at the L.A. Lakers to form another NBA superteam, maybe even greater than Michael Jordan and his 1996 Chicago Bulls
The L.A. Lakers are laying it all on the line to secure the NBA title next season and their trade for former MVP Russell Westbrook says that emphatically.
The Washington Wizards sent nine-time All-Star Westbrook and two future second-round draft picks to the Lakers for Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and the No. 22 pick in this year’s draft, which they then dealt to the Indiana Pacers.
Westbrook was born in Long Beach, California which is, of course, in the Los Angeles area. A homecoming is nice, but at 32, Westbrook has been traded to help Lakers win right now.
The point guard is a two-time scoring champion who won the 2016-17 NBA MVP award. He’s a three-time assist leader and two-time All-Star MVP, but he’s never won an NBA title.
He became the first man ever to average a triple-double over the course of an NBA season in 2016-17, and he’s repeated that feat three times since.
The NBA now has two genuine superteams in the L.A. Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets.
The Lakers have LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Westbrook. That’s two MVPs and 34 All Star appearances between the trio.
The Nets have Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant. All three of those men are in their prime whereas James is 36, but LeBron is easily one of the greatest players to ever play the game who only won a championship two seasons ago.
The Golden State Warriors will welcome back Klay Thompson this year who will make a formidable backcourt with Steph Curry once again. If you factor in Draymond Green or even Anthon Wiggins, you could argue Golden State is a superteam too.
That’s the era of the NBA now. These teams are arguably more stacked than the legendary Chicago Bulls that ruled the 1990s with Michal Jordan at the forefront.
Let’s be honest: Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan. Having Jordan in his prime on any team was pretty much a super team. Still, his main lieutenant was Scottie Pippen and in later years, Dennis Rodman helped in that regard, too. That was the super team trio Chicago had.
How does that stack up today? Jordan was the driver. Rodman played his role as rim protector, screen-setter and rebounder to perfection while Pippen was one of the best two-way players in NBA history, only under-celebrated because he was operating next to the GOAT himself, Michael Jordan.
The Lakers have put together a formidable trio, but they have a lot of work to build around them. The Purple and Yellow had the 21st best three-point percentage in the league last season and they need shooters.
Westbrook is 30.5 percent from three in his career and is not the answer, but he is a heavy influence on the game in many other ways and takes a load off James, in particular.
If they can put some three-and-D swingmen around them, the Lakers look like a great bet to win the title, but it’s a big if. Westbrook did not gel terribly well with the also ball-dominant James Harden in Houston, so it’s hard to say how operating with LeBron will look.
Conversely, Brooklyn had the second-best three-point percentage in the league last year and found a way to run an offence that includes Harden, Irving and Durant. The only drawback was they couldn’t do it more because of injuries.
Injuries are also what ended up bogging the Lakers down in the playoffs. But now with their superstar trio and another former All Star in Andre Drummond at center, they’ve got the core of a serious team.
The thing with superteams are, the headline acts are only part of the puzzle. It’s how you build the rest of the roster that carries you over the line and one could argue that’s what the Bulls did best around the greatest centrepiece imaginable.
Take the 2015-16 Warriors for example. They went a record 73-9 - which broke the Bulls’ 1995-96 record of 72-10 - with the core of Curry, Thompson and Green. But, around them, they had talents like Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston, Festus Ezeli, Mareese Speights and Andrew Bogut and they all continued in various ways.
They had to sacrifice a number of those talents in order to afford Durant to join them the very next season, and their record was slightly worse at 67-15. But, they did win the title with Durant, while the season prior they collapsed a 3-1 lead in the Finals to - wait for it - LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.