Nearing the halfway mark of his inaugural season with his hometown Los Angeles Lakers and recognizing that his play is under constant scrutiny as the team struggles, Russell Westbrook said he’s done taking direction on what he should be doing differently.
“Everybody wants me to do this but then they don’t want me to do this,” Westbrook said on a video conference call with reporters Monday. “Honestly, I’m over the whole situation with what everyone else wants me to do and what they think I should be doing.”
Westbrook had a rough night shooting the ball in the Lakers’ high-profile Christmas Day loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday. He scored 13 points on 4-for-20 shooting, which included 11 missed shots in the restricted area, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. He tied his own record for the most missed shots that close to the basket in a single game in the last 10 seasons, having had the same amount of chippies go awry on Jan. 22, 2020 when he played for the Houston Rockets.
A common refrain uttered by Westbrook’s teammates and coaches since L.A. acquired him in an offseason trade with the Washington Wizards has been “let Russ be Russ,” in hopes of accommodating the nine-time All-Star.
The 14-year veteran said that he is taking the same approach he always has and that outsized expectations of him, joining the Lakers as the only player in league history to average a triple-double four seasons in his career, could be warping people’s perspective.
“Honestly, I think I’ve been fine,” Westbrook said. “The conversation has been heavily on how I’m playing and what I’m doing, but I think people are expecting me to have f—ing 25, 15 and 15, which, that is not normal. Everybody has to understand, like, that’s not a normal thing that people do consistently.”
Westbrook’s most impressive statistical contribution this season has been playing in all 34 of the Lakers’ games. LeBron James has only played in 22. Anthony Davis has only appeared in 27 and is…
Source : espn
