Bring hurricane Russy Westbrook to a city near you
I won’t lie to you, I spent the last 2 hours before writing this article trading Russell Westbrook to various teams around the NBA using the ESPN Trade Machine. I love chaos and I think we are about to achieve Maximum Chaos when it comes to Russ. This is the season he becomes unhinged and goes full supernova on a NBA court. He may leave tread marks on the court, he might fight Dion Waiters, he might stop going to the locker room at half-time and just do fast break dunks instead for the whole intermission. No one knows how far this version of Russ will push, but everyone is excited.
With Durant gone, Westbrook’s days in Oklahoma seem to be counting down rapidly to zero. With the lost of one of its two most marketable stars, the appeal of a small market and decidedly small town OKC may be in decline. There are already conflicting reports regarding Russ’ willingness to sign an extension this summer and rumours that Presti may or may not be fielding trade requests. Theoretically, if you ever wished your team who has a point guard who plays basketball as if he’s fighting 1000 Romans at the same time in the middle of a hurricane, you can have him. For a price.
Here are the rules of this hypothetical exercise. I went through 28 NBA teams and plugged hypothetical trades into an algorithm, if they made sense, I wrote about them in this article imagining a wonderful new land where Russell plays for a team near you. If they didn’t for various reasons, i.e. New York not offering a deal even if Presti slid a note under James Dolan’s door and all it read was “Russ?”, they didn’t get included because it’s not fun to imagine Westbrook marooned in Brooklyn (even though his fashion sense fits right in). Here are the teams that I think should at least inquire.
Los Angeles Lakers
LA Trades: D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Lou Williams.
I’m getting the fanboy trade out of the way first. Yes you’re trading the house but you’re trading it for a much better house, with wings and lightning bolts painted on the side and a chimney that doesn’t as much exert smoke as it spits fire at the ozone layer. Oh, and it flies. Plus, you still get to keep Ingram who Russell gets to mould into his own personal version of Kevin Durant who will then join him on the rampage through 28 other NBA cities.
The Thunder in return will get a solid young core to pair with Victor Oladipo and a developing Adams, all on pretty good contracts and gets to start the rebuilding process early.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Cleveland Trades: Kevin Love and whoever else.
You know you’ve fantasied about this. Probably not as much as me (my custom Cavs “0” jersey should be delivered any day now), but at least a little bit? Sure, I get it, Kyrie and Russ both happen to be ball heavy players, and sure Russell is not the best distributor of the ball, but you’re missing one important detail, no-one hates GSW right now more than Russ outside of possibly LeBron “how dare you cut my celebratory parade through 50 states short” James. If this means you have to give Russ and Kyrie a ball each? Do it. Give them three. Give them five. Change all the rules, just make it happen.
Who cares what the Thunder get out of this. It’s Russ and LeBron versus the death planet from Force Awakens in 2017 NBA Finals. Everyone wins.
Milwaukee Bucks
Milwaukee Trades: Greg Monroe, Michael Carter-Williams
Let’s both solve a problem a satisfy basketball long limb fetishists all at once. Milwaukee is already not so quietly trying to distance themselves from the Greg Monroe experiment. They have one of the most intriguing composition of limbs in the league and are one more member away from a roadside attraction. Let’s give them that by sending Hurricane Westbrook to Wisconsin. Who needs shooting when your opponent has to navigate a forrest of hands that never end just to miss and get punished by a meteor leading the fast break. This is option Maximum Chaos.
OKC will get a young point guard who for some reason won Rookie of the Year (I heard that has some value) and a scoring centre to pair with their young core. It kind of works.
Orlando Magic
Orlando Trades: Nicola Vucevic/Aaron Gordon, Elfrid Payton
I don’t know if OKC knew Durant’s decision when they pulled the trigger on the Ibaka decision. The better question is, would they have? Perhaps it was best to keep Ibaka and let him do a one-two punch with Russ from inside out. There is only one way to find out for Sam Presti, send Russell to Orlando for whatever they’re willing to offer out of their young talent. Watch from a far and see if it works (bonus points for Jeff Green) and if it does bring it up in every conversation even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the subject like Bill Simmons does with the James Harden trade. This is basically OKC-light from the start.
OKC will get some young guys with potential in return, plus the added bonus of not needing as much time to adjust as we’re basically just building Disneyland in Oklahoma now (which, if you think about it for too long may be one of the most depressing mental images ever).
Los Angeles Clippers
Clippers Trade: Blake Griffin
I wanted to say Chris Paul, but OKC would want Griffin to pair with Adams for basketball reasons and Doc Rivers the GM has never been the smartest GM in the room, including rooms in which he’s the only GM. While there is unlimited potential for Chris Paul to get frustrated with Russell’s disrespect for basketball fundamentals to the point of sneaking poisonous snakes into his hotel room, this may be worth it. Doc Rivers’ system at the best of times is uninspired and is usually salvaged by the creativity of Paul and his ability to bend space to thread dimes and drop long twos. Westbrook’s addition is basically pouring gasoline over an open spark. Imagine him as an off the ball weapon with Chris Paul feeding him dimes and tell me your head didn’t just explode.
OKC in turn will get to host a homecoming for Blake Griffin and give him a fresh start. He’d finally be free of tyranny of Paul and at Liberty to develop into one of the most threatening two-way fours in the game by taking on more ball handling duties.
Minnesotta Timberwolves
Wolves trade: Ricky Rubio, Andrew Wiggins
Would you punt on Wiggins for a chance to pair KAT and Russ? If you just say no, leave your NBA-fan card at the door and leave. Towns is already one of the best two-way bigs in the league with an unparalleled ability to stretch the floor. He’s the kind of big who’s ideal for Russ and can operate in the post or pop out and drain kick-out jumpers when Westbrook attacks the rim like it owes him money. Thibs’ system involves basically grinding through the other team until they’re ashes, and Russell Westbrook plays every game like there are 60 minutes and not 48. I’ve never tried pure, uncut cocaine (or any kind of cocaine for that matter), but I imagine watching this team would be a pretty comparable feeling.
OKC gets a solid to shore up their directionless franchise and a great young prospect who many still see as a future All-Star. They’d change their team into a more athletic version of Minny and build a solid backcourt.
New Orleans Pelicans
NOLA Trades: Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans
Free Anthony Davis. What’s better than an athlete who makes you question whether or not we got this whole physics thing right from the start? How about two of them? Anthony Davis has been slowly morphing into basketball Godzilla with a three point shot over the last three years, but New Orleans’ management has never made an effort to surround him with the talent to both ease the load and push him further. Enter Russell Westbrook. Picture these two run the fast break together or run the pick and roll as a unit. Three words: League Pass Heroin.
Meanwhile, the talent would be spread across 5 positions in OKC and Tyreke will once again get to be the primary ball-handler, looking to recapture his success from Sacramento. Both are still young enough with valuable enough old-cap contracts to be a good deal.
Sacramento Kings
Kings Trade: Rudy Gay, Daren Collison
You owe this to Cousins Vivek, you owe this to the people of Sacramento, you owe this to the universe. MAKE IT HAPPEN. There is zero basketball reasons this would ever work. Putting Boogie and Russ together is like pitting a scorpion and a spider in the same can, playing rock music and lighting a bonfire around them while they fight to the death. The reality show based solely of the premise of Boogie trying to run point-centre on Russ’ team will own every Emmy for like the next 10 seasons.
San Antonio Spurs
Spurs Trade: LaMarcus Aldridge
I think it’s safe to say that not everyone in San Antonio is happy with experiment LaMarcus.
With the acquisition of Gasol, the Spurs finally got another big man who thrives in a Gregg Popovich system, but I will still never forgive them for getting rid of Boris Diaw. Now it’s time to put this Spurs system in the overdrive. I believe that Pop could reform anyone and project Westbrook will be his crowing achievement. Imagine someone with Russell’s athletic ability leading the Spurs fast break or executing drive and kicks to the likes of Danny Green and Patty Mills. Provided Pop doesn’t kill him in the “adjustment” phase, Russell Westbrook might break the game in San Antonio.
Oklahoma City
In the end though, I want nothing more than for Oklahoma City to get 82 games of Maximum Russell Westbrook. Have you ever seen Gladiator? Do you remember when Maximus basically manhandles like 15 dudes and then throws down with the masters like “what’s up now doe?” That’s Russ on OKC without KD, especially when someone whispers in his ear that maybe Durant left because of Russ. He may potentially average a triple double or he may break the sound and light barriers on a fast break and disappear into the fabric of the universe, transcending all being.
