Can Russell Westbrook work alongside Kawhi, Paul George? Breaking down the fit with Clippers
Jovan Buha and Law Murray
Feb 22, 2023
Russell Westbrook will be joining the LA Clippers this week, with his possible debut on his fifth NBA team coming as soon as Friday night at home against the Sacramento Kings.
Westbrook was traded by the Los Angeles Lakers two weeks ago to the Utah Jazz in a three-team trade that involved the Minnesota Timberwolves. On Monday, Westbrook completed a buyout with the Jazz, placing him on waivers and clearing the way for him to join the Clippers. Since the Clippers moved from San Diego in 1984, only one former MVP has ever played for them: Bill Walton in 1984-85.
Now make that two.
To call Westbrook a complicated player is an understatement. To further break down his fit with the Clippers, The Athletic brings back the NBA Hallway pairing of Lakers beat writer Jovan Buha and Clippers beat writer Law Murray for a roundtable on Westbrook’s strengths and weaknesses.
Law Murray: Jovan, the Clippers have made many transactions under this front office led by the president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, including the addition of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard in the 2019 offseason. But the cacophony surrounding the Westbrook addition has been astonishing.
Jovan Buha: I think I speak for many in saying I was surprised by the Clippers’ interest in Westbrook given their championship aspirations and the specific needs that Frank laid out fewer than two weeks ago. Westbrook checks some of those boxes — and comes up short in a few notable categories.
Murray: That Friday night at the arena in downtown LA was amazing, just to hear how Frank, head coach Tyronn Lue, and later George described the point guard situation (and for George, Westbrook specifically). But I always got the sense that despite the difference in opinion, the key stakeholders of the Clippers would maintain a healthy dialogue.
And now that Westbrook is going to be here, let’s start with his strengths.
Buha: It’s understandable why the Clippers, and several other suitors, were able to talk themselves into the appeal of Westbrook. He remains an elite penetrator and distributor, which are two skills the Clippers’ offense has needed this season.
His finishing ability at the rim has declined, but Westbrook has an uncanny knack for getting downhill, even when defenses play off of him, and battering his way to the rim for high-percentage attempts. He’s a one-man fast break who can swing a team’s pace ranking almost singlehandedly. Ivica Zubac is likely going to love playing with Westbrook, who is going to get him some of the easiest baskets of his career once they iron out their timing and spacing in the pick-and-roll. Few players can match Westbrook’s rare combination of athleticism, physicality and force.
On the defensive side, Westbrook has transitioned into a wing defender who uses his size and strength to body opponents in the post and isolation – he’s closer to 6-foot-5 than his listed height of 6-foot-3. He had some impressive moments in the fourth quarter against Leonard in the Lakers’ 103-97 loss to the Clippers on Oct. 20, battling him on the block and denying entry passes.
That defensive wrinkle will allow the Clippers to slot Westbrook on wings and place their larger wings on point guards — normally a mismatch situation for most opponents. He can function reasonably well in a switching scheme. For example, I can envision the Clippers going relatively “positionless” in certain matchups with some combination of Leonard, George, Westbrook and two wings, switching all over the place and pushing the pace as teams struggle to cross-match on the other end. He’s long been a plus-rebounder for his size, which is another area where the Clippers could use a boost.
Westbrook can be a useful player in the right circumstances. I believe the Clippers’ 3-point shooting and perimeter defense will provide him with the type of environment that he could thrive in, considering he never had it in his year and a half with the Lakers. If there ever were a roster that could mask his shortcomings, this is probably it.
Murray: For all of the drawbacks of Westbrook’s game, there certainly has been a level of production that suggests he can be helpful in a certain capacity. But the reaction to Westbrook comes mostly from the holes in his game that you began to reference. Where are Westbrook’s weaknesses at this stage in his career?
Buha: The most notable weakness is his mindset, which affects all aspects of his game. It’s the gift that made him so great at his peak, but has become something of a curse as he ages. Westbrook has played his way for 15 years, and is a first-ballot Hall of Famer because of it. It isn’t going to change.
His mentality is often at odds with his skill and talent. Westbrook is a glaring minus outside of 16 feet — he’s shooting 28.8 percent on long 2s and 29.6 percent on 3s this season (30.4 percent for his career) — though you wouldn’t necessarily conclude that based on his shot profile. He has the opposite of gravity. Defenses ignore him past the 12-to-16 feet range, almost to comical degrees sometimes. There are worse shooters that get more respect from defenses.
And for every time that Westbrook uses that runway to his advantage, finding an open shooter or cutter, or slicing his way to the rim, he’ll come back down on the next possession, take the exact shot every opponent wants him to take and miss it (roughly 70 percent of the time). He’s too reckless with the ball to lead a good half-court offense. The way opponents defend him can also lead to fast break-igniting turnovers, as many of them occur against a crowd in the paint.
Simply put, Westbrook needs the ball to be effective. It’s the reason the Lakers moved him to the bench and tried to stagger his minutes away from LeBron James’ as much as possible. Westbrook masquerading as a floor spacer is a death knell in the half court. He’s shown no inclination to cut or screen on or off the ball. How will that work when, as Frank said, Leonard and George combine for 60-plus percent usage? Westbrook will likely need some version of his own unit to be most effective. He’s more of a shoot-first floor general than his assist totals suggest.
While he’s often engaged on the ball defensively, he can fall asleep when guarding off it, failing to rotate in a timely manner, stick with his man on back-cuts or chase his man around screens. Combine the shooting woes with the defensive lapses and his turnovers, and Westbrook is a liability in crunchtime. Opponents stick their centers on him in high-leverage moments to roam freely and clog the paint (a tactic the Clippers have successfully used with Zubac against the Lakers multiple times). The Clippers may end up starting Westbrook and playing him 30-plus minutes on some nights, but they are better off using a different lead guard over the final six-to-eight minutes of important games.
The biggest question: What type of role is Westbrook actually willing to accept?
He eventually accepted his bench role with the Lakers, but it was far from seamless. He wasn’t always happy with his playing time or not closing games, as he made clear with his answers in postgame press conferences — sometimes even after wins. From an outsider’s perspective, Westbrook’s joy was more tied to his own role and performance than the game’s outcome. He’ll likely be in a similar position with the Clippers.
What type of role do you envision Westbrook having with the Clippers? You reported that he’s likely going to start at some point. Do you think he’ll eventually be the third scoring option and log heavy minutes? What will the Clippers do if, for whatever reason, this doesn’t work?
Murray: I could not agree with you more about Westbrook being a questionable closing option. While the Clippers have discussed starting Westbrook, they have also made it clear to him that the best options will close games. Lue has often said that he does not coach from a card, and that he goes with feel at the end of games. Even with Westbrook coming off the bench, the Lakers played him minutes in the high 20s, and he attempted almost 15 shots per game. Last season, Westbrook played minutes in the high 30s and attempted almost 16 shots per game. There is no way that Westbrook approaches that number of field goal attempts with the Clippers.
The closest example of Westbrook’s role with the Clippers from a minutes and shots standpoint is the departed John Wall, who was at 22.2 minutes per game, while former starter Reggie Jackson was at 25.7 minutes. Both attempted just under 10 shots per game. There are so many options for Lue to use, both alongside Westbrook and instead of him. The nine-time All-Star is headed for career lows. But in a 20-minute role, the Clippers would benefit in the first three quarters of games from Westbrook getting defenses in the penalty, punishing teams that don’t get back in transition and generally relieving pressure off of George and Leonard, two players who are capable catch-and-shoot threats.
I’ve seen Lue get Rajon Rondo in the middle of the 2020-21 season, and while Rondo had a positive impact early following more than a week of injury recovery, he peaked in Game 3 of the 2021 Western Conference quarterfinals against the Dallas Mavericks. Rondo leading a comeback with Terance Mann was the only “Playoff Rondo” performance the Clippers got — a necessary one, I may add, with the Clippers losing the first two games at home in that series. Lue ultimately benched Rondo for six of the final 11 games of what was the best postseason run in Clippers franchise history. In 2021-22, Lue wound up moving Eric Bledsoe to the second unit after a month as a starter next to Jackson. Wall was never a DNP-CD under Lue, but Lue never let him get to 30 minutes while holding Wall under 20 minutes nine times. Even going further back, Lue got the end of Deron Williams’ career via buyout six years ago, and Williams went from an every-game starter with the Mavericks to a bench piece who often didn’t see 20 minutes.
The point is that Lue has no problem sitting an established player and communicating it effectively. Westbrook is on a team that doesn’t need him for the first time in his career. Either this will be the first time that Westbrook adjusts to that reality, or it could be his last chance headed into the 2023 offseason. The Clippers have plenty of viable options, whether Westbrook works out for them or not.
Buha: I think you nailed it with this line: “Westbrook is on a team that doesn’t need him for the first time in his career.” The Lakers, however begrudgingly, still needed him as long as he was taking up over one-third of their cap sheet. The Clippers can outright bench him, send him home or cut him if the partnership isn’t working.
I think all of those comparisons are valid, but I’ll provide three additional points:
The Clippers are somewhat undermining their leverage if they’re already promising — or at least planning — to start him.
Though all three of Rondo, Wall and Williams were All-Stars and great players at their respective peaks, Westbrook is a top-75 player. Some may roll their eyes, but that matters to him and his peers. It places him in a different stratosphere from a status/personality perspective.
All three of Rondo, Wall and Williams were relative failures in their situations, to varying degrees, which doesn’t exactly bode well for the Westbrook-Clippers pairing.
Of course, Westbrook will have his press conference this week and say all of the right things about how he’s ready for the next chapter of his career, excited to be reunited with George and embracing the role the Clippers offered him. But he said similar things to the Lakers — publicly and privately — in the summer of 2021. We all saw how that worked.
The difference here, to advance your point, is that Westbrook is playing for his standing in the league — and possibly the rest of his career. If he flames out of both LA teams within a few months, he’s going to lose considerable appeal in free agency this summer. He has a lot at stake. At the same time, he was also an impending free agent with the Lakers, and that didn’t change his approach this season beyond the optics of accepting a bench role.
Ever since
Kevin Durant left
Oklahoma City, there has been a narrative that it’s difficult — at least by superstar standards — to make a deep playoff run with Westbrook given his shooting deficiencies and lack of stylistic versatility. He’s advanced past the first round once since 2016.
Westbrook signing with the Clippers puts that storyline to the test. Can he adapt? How will he handle a fluctuating role in a different locker room? This is the best roster he’s played on since Durant left OKC. It has shooting, depth and defense. It has an elite tactician in Lue who can help hide Westbrook’s flaws. Westbrook can only point the finger at himself if he doesn’t fit with the Clippers.
This is also a massive gamble for the Clippers’ front office. If this doesn’t work, it’ll be viewed more as a head-scratching miscalculation than a shrewd attempt to extract value on the buyout market. The Clippers know the risks of signing Westbrook and still choose to anyway.
This feels like a move that’s going to have a definitive outcome. Westbrook may fit in and help the Clippers win a playoff game or series and make a deep postseason run. Or he could undermine their season. Stay tuned.
(Photo of Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard: Kirby Lee / USA Today)
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