Russell Westbrook and the Lakers: How we got here

By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer

At the moment, the name Russell Westbrook elicits many emotions.

For longtime basketball followers, he's the triple-double king of the NBA, a future Hall of Famer and a master of all trades — at least offensively. But for Lakers fans, he's also an utter disappointment, a $47 million dark hole and a tumor on the organization.

Westbrook's stock plummeted last season. In fact, he suffered one of the most precipitous falls in the public eye in recent memory.

And even though Westbrook opted in to the final year on his contract with the Lakers, it's clear that his future with the team hangs in the balance. As we head into the dog days of summer, what will happen with Westbrook remains one of the biggest questions.

How did a nine-time All-Star and the 2017 league MVP have such a dramatic fall? To examine how we got here, let's take a look at some of the pivotal moments for Westbrook last season.

Russ gets traded to the Lakers

A little more than a year ago, news broke that the Lakers were going to trade three key role players — Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell — and a first-round pick to acquire Westbrook. It was a risky move, but risky moves are what the Lakers are about.

Heck, they acted with similar boldness just two years earlier, when they gave up Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram and significant draft compensation to acquire Anthony Davis. At the end of that season, they were hoisting the franchise's 17th Larry O'Brien trophy.

Maybe they'd strike gold again? After all, acquiring Westbrook made some sense. With LeBron James turning 37 and Davis proving to be injury-prone, the team needed another playmaker. 

But there was also something that never felt right about this move. Would their styles be complementary? Would their personalities mesh? Would their outsized egos fit in the same locker room? 

Lakers Media Day

The theme of Lakers Media Day was unanimous and cohesive: We're going to let Russ be Russ. (I heard that phrase so many times, I'm surprised Lakers' haters haven't mockingly put that slogan on a T-shirt alongside the team's record from last season.)

Throughout Media Day, the Big Three dismissed all concerns about their fit. They led us to believe that they'd be the last ones laughing. There was nothing to worry about.

Sure, they cautioned that it would take time for them to jell. But they also assured us that they had no doubts that they'd make the necessary sacrifices to make things work. 

They had just returned from a mini-camp in Las Vegas organized by James. They were on the same page, eager to become the league's newest superteam. 

Russ' nightmare debut

Anticipation had been brewing for months. The Lakers' season opener against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 19 would be our first look at the Russ-LeBron-AD trio.

This moment was especially poignant for Westbrook, who had dreamed of donning a Laker uniform ever since he was a child attending Leuzinger High in Lawndale, California. In fact, he used to ditch school to attend Laker championship parades. His family and friends were all at Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena) for his first game with the team. 

But his grand debut was an epic letdown, a harbinger of what was to come over the next seven months.

It took him 15 minutes to get on the scoreboard, he didn't make a single 3-pointer, and he finished with just eight points on 4-for-13 shooting, five rebounds and four assists. He also had the worst plus-minus (-23) of anyone on the court.

After the game, disappointment was draped over his face. He looked down and hardly uttered more than a few words when reporters asked him questions. 

"I just got to figure it out," he said. "That's all."

Westbrook's name on the trading block

As it turned out, this Lakers team never could figure it out. When you watched them play, your eyes saw endless talent, but your brain immediately registered how disjointed they were. It was like biting into a slice of chocolate cake but tasting chalk.

Things came to a head in mid-January, when Lakers coach Frank Vogel was rumored to be a hair away from being fired, and rumors started to swirl about Westbrook being on the trading block. Following a 37-point drubbing by Denver on Jan. 15, with which the Lakers fell under .500, Magic Johnson even weighed in, tweeting, in part, "Owner Jeanie Buss, you deserve better."

Just a few days later, during a game against Indiana on Jan. 19, Vogel decided to bench Westbrook for the final three minutes and 52 seconds. Westbrook had blown a defensive assignment and shot 5-for-17 from the field.

That set a new precedent. Vogel made it clear he was willing to do anything to help the team win, including alienating Westbrook. 

After the game, Westbrook left without speaking to reporters. 

Westbrook addressed the incident for the first time a few days later, saying, "I was upset about it. More upset that we didn't win the game. That's the most important part."

Westbrook's frustration builds

Vogel continued to bench Westbrook when he deemed it necessary. 

In a game against New York on Feb. 5, Westbrook was benched in overtime; he had shot 1-for-10 from the field prior to that. In he following game against Milwaukee, he was benched for the final 16 minutes after going 3-for-11 from the field.

It was obviously a tough pill for Westbrook to swallow. He had been the guy his entire career. Now, he was being relegated to the bench during crunch time, a mortifying development for a player who was still supposed to be in his prime.

Westbrook went on to suffer back tightness that forced him to miss a game Feb. 9. When questioned about the ailment, he alluded to spending too much time on the bench as a factor in the injury. 

"I'm not accustomed to, like, sitting down in long stretches and, like, getting up and then, like, moving quickly," he told reporters Feb. 11.

Westbrick drama

It's not easy to play for the purple and gold. Players are under an especially intense microscope with the Lakers, an organization tied with the Boston Celtics for the most championships in league history.

Fans have very little tolerance for mediocrity, a lesson Westbrook learned the hard way. It didn't take long for TV personalities and fans to mock him for his subpar shooting. Sometimes he'd be booed. Sometimes he'd be called "Westbrick." 

That nickname deeply bothers him and his family.

In March, Westbrook's wife, Nina, took to Twitter to plead for that nickname to be dropped. Westbrook stood behind his wife. 

"I don't even want to bring my kids to the game because I don't want them to hear people calling their dad nicknames and other names for no reason because he's playing the game that he loves," he told reporters March 7. 

Exit interviews

Things panned out worse for the Lakers than anyone expected. They lost 13 of their final 16 games, missing the playoffs with a record of 33-49.  For a team that entered the season with championship expectations, it was one of the most epic collapses in league history. 

It's clear that Westbrook felt singled out all season. He had come to Los Angeles hoping to find his forever home, but instead, he constantly drew the blame for the Lakers' failings.

He couldn't seem to flip the narrative.

His shooting was irregular. He often looked out of rhythm. He never seemed to be playing his game. 

His 18.5 points a game were the fewest he averaged since his second year in the league. His 7.4 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game represented a steep dropoff from the 11.5 rebounds and 11.7 assists he averaged in Washington the year prior. He finished with 10 triple-doubles last season, compared to 38 during his lone season with the Wizards.

In his exit interview, Westbrook said, "I never felt I had a fair chance on the basketball front or any front."

When asked to elaborate, he said he thought stories were made up about him in the media, though he declined to cite examples. And he said he felt Vogel had an issue with him.

At that time, Westbrook declined to talk about whether he'd opt in to his contract.

But it was clear that his value had dramatically fallen. There was no chance he'd make $47 million anywhere else — or anything close to that number.

In late June, as expected, he opted in.

Summer of uncertainty

The Lakers fired Vogel at the end of the season and eventually replaced him with Darvin Ham, who was an assistant coach for Milwaukee. 

Ham has made it clear that he still believes in the Lakers' Big Three, who played only 21 games together last season, going 11-10.

He has also made it clear that he's a proponent of Westbrook. 

"I'm thrilled to coach Russ," Ham said in an appearance on the podcast "All The Smoke." "They try to dump on Russ. I'm like, that was one of the things that got me excited about the job."

But things are far from resolved. 

Just a few weeks ago, there was an icy showdown between the team's stars at Summer League in Las Vegas. Both Westbrook and James attended a game, but according to multiple reports, they never spoke to one another in public.

On Friday, ESPN reported that Westbrook had parted ways with his longtime agent, Thad Foucher, citing irreconcilable differences. Foucher said in a statement that he believes Westbrook's "best option is to stay with the Lakers," which obviously implies that Westbrook believes otherwise. 

It seems as though Westbrook remaining with the Lakers is simply untenable, though Yahoo! Sports reported Monday that James, Davis and Westbrook spoke over the phone at Summer League, "expressing their commitment to one another and vowing to make it work."

As of now, the drama continues.

Over the course of a season, Westbrook went from being the Lakers' savior to being their fall man. He went from being hailed as a superstar to being dismissed as an utter failure. 

His fabled return to Los Angeles was supposed to play out like a movie with a happy ending, but instead, it turned into a horror story. 

And it still hasn't ended.

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter at @melissarohlin.