Lakers were doomed from their first start
THE NIGHT OF October 11, 2021 was not just any Monday in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants had played Game 3 of the National League Divisional Series at Dodger Stadium, while across town in Westwood, the NBA’s newest superteam was gathering for a private screening of Russell Westbrook’s autobiographical Showtime documentary, “Passion Play.”
Initially, no party had been planned due to local COVID-19 restrictions. But this documentary was important to Westbrook, so he paid for and organized an IPIC theater, catering and COVID testing for all attendees, so that his friends, family and new Los Angeles Lakers teammates could attend safely.
The Lakers had just opened training camp and were full of optimism for the season.
Sure, there was skepticism inside and outside the franchise about how Westbrook would fit in alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis. But eventually everyone involved agreed that the team needed a third star to help carry the load when, not if, James and Davis were sidelined due to injuries.
As with the Olympic team, the thinking was that fit didn’t matter as much as talent when everyone’s intentions were good.
Westbrook had assured James and Davis in a series of meetings before and after the trade that he would do whatever it took to make it all work, which gave James and Davis the confidence to advocate for the marriage with Lakers management.
Showing up that Monday night for Westbrook’s movie premiere was exactly the kind of thing NBA superstars do to affirm their intentions.
“It was really significant that LeBron was there,” said Gotham Chopra, the film’s director, who worked with James on “Shut Up and Dribble.”
“I thought it was a great statement for Russ that he was there because of his status in the game and the industry.”
For two years, Chopra had been filming a side of Westbrook that is rarely seen behind the defiant armor that has become his public persona. He could sense Westbrook’s excitement and nerves as the release date approached. So, like James, Chopra made sure he was there to show his support, flying coast to coast for the release day.
Supernaturally strong winds aside, it was a beautiful night. Westbrook was finally playing for his hometown team after 14 seasons in the NBA. He could take his kids to school in the morning or to his grandparents’ house in the evening. His friends and family could attend games at home.
The documentary screening was at a theater five minutes from UCLA, where basketball center court is named after him. Everything was perfectly set up.
Then, the comedy. The projector didn’t work. And not just a little bit. It broke all at once. As the crew waited in front of the dark screen, technicians worked for 15 minutes to try to fix it. They tried to run the film again.
“It just stopped halfway through,” said one viewer. “It was so frustrating.”
Once they determined that the projector was too broken to repair, everyone moved to a different theater and continued the movie where they had left off. Surprisingly, no one left.
IPIC theaters are as modern as they look. Leather recliners. All the amenities. Servers delivering candy and drinks to your seats. Several rooms were set up for Westbrook’s premiere. His immediate family and crew were assigned to the biggest and nicest theater. And that was the one that didn’t work.
It was an unfortunate disaster, one that nothing, and no one, could fix.
And so began the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2021-2022 season.
AFTER THE LAKERS were eliminated from the postseason Tuesday night, there were all kinds of postmortems about their downfall.
“I really don’t have any words for this season with the exception of … a lot of disarray,” Lakers Hall of Famer James Worthy said on a program following the team’s 121-110 loss to the Phoenix Suns.
“It takes some kind of consistency and some kind of formula. It takes one thing to keep going … But they had nothing coming into the season and it lasted like that all season.”
And just like the technical difficulties that no one could fix in Westbrook’s documentary opener, there is no easy fix.
The Lakers diagnosed the problem with their 2020-21 team, a squad that went 42-30 and lost in the first round of the playoffs: the inconsistent availability of James and Davis due to injuries. Their solution was Westbrook.
Westbrook was a bad fit in basketball terms, but team insiders insist his personality, along with often passive-aggressive James and non-confrontational coach Frank Vogel, was even worse.
A poorly conceptualized roster didn’t help either. Four of the nine players who finished the season in Vogel’s rotation (Stanley Johnson, Wenyen Gabriel, Avery Bradley and D.J. Augustin) weren’t even on the training camp team. Two of the opening night starters (Kent Bazemore and DeAndre Jordan) were either out of the rotation or discarded.
Throughout the season, Vogel often told confidants that he felt he was “searching.” Regardless of what answers he did or didn’t find, he is expected to be replaced after the season, sources said.
It may not be Vogel’s fault, team insiders said, but firing a coach is the easiest change for a franchise to make.
The front office, led by president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka and special adviser Kurt Rambis, is expected to remain in charge, sources said.
But there is no easy way to change the core group of James, Davis and Westbrook. The Lakers were reluctant to incentivize a trade for Westbrook by adding their 2027 first-round pick at the trade deadline, especially when they have so few future draft assets to trade after acquiring Davis in 2019. Sources said they are also unwilling to tie up their salary cap in the future through a waiver-and-extension provision after finally completing the waiver-and-extension deal for Luol Deng this offseason ($5 million of the Lakers’ 2021-22 salary cap was dead money from the Deng deal) .
And while it might be possible to trade Westbrook in the offseason, those deals are very limited due to his $47 million salary.
One option: Westbrook considering terminating the final year of his contract, but at least for now, sources close to the 2017 MVP expressed pessimism that he would do that.
Westbrook is a proud man. His arrogance is both his sword and his shield, and he won’t give them up lightly. He’s wary of the stigma that comes with accepting a buyout, a source close to him explained. But he also believes he can contribute to a top-tier team.
Which leaves him and the Lakers back in the theater with a broken projector, waiting for a solution that may never come.
ALTHOUGH WESTBROOK isn’t the sole reason for the Lakers’ disaster this season, the team’s decision to trade for him is a good place to diagnose what went wrong and why.
In choosing Westbrook, the Lakers also effectively chose not to trade for DeMar DeRozan or Buddy Hield, which speaks to their organizational values (star power over basketball chemistry) and decision-making processes.
According to sources close to the situation, DeRozan met with James and Davis at James’ Brentwood home several times, and there was initial interest in building a sign-and-trade deal with San Antonio that likely would have involved Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma and a draft pick. But because DeRozan was a free agent, the Lakers had to wait to act on that scenario. Meanwhile, talks with the Sacramento Kings for Hield and the Washington Wizards for Westbrook intensified before the NBA draft on July 29.
While the timing influenced the choice of Westbrook or Hield (both available via trade before free agency) over DeRozan, sources close to the situation insist that it was James and Davis’ enthusiasm for Westbrook that moved the process in that direction.
The Lakers have always been an organization that gives significant voice and influence to its stars. For better or worse, it’s part of the brand and was a major selling point for James when he entrusted his golden years to the franchise as a free agent in 2018.
Look no further than the franchise’s relationship with Magic Johnson, the man who helped seal that four-year commitment to James. Johnson left the Lakers just a year later because of disputes with Pelinka and a general discomfort with the restrictions that come with the role of president of basketball operations. But he still maintains significant access and influence with Lakers decision-makers, despite the damage his actions in 2019 caused the franchise.
Star power, in other words, has few limits. That’s both empowering for basketball luminaries like Johnson and James, and an ongoing organizational problem: confusing roles and responsibilities, and confusing who is accountable when things go wrong.
