Patrick Beverley, Dennis Schroder bench Russell Westbrook?

The Los Angeles Lakers are reportedly considering bringing Russell Westbrook off the bench, with Patrick Beverley and Dennis Schroder starting.

Imagine telling it lakers Fans around this time last year that Russell Westbrook would be in danger of coming off the bench at the start of the 2022-23 season.

They would have laughed you out of the room.

But that’s where Westbrook and the Lakers find themselves this September after a year that didn’t go according to plan.

The Lakers are reportedly opening Russell Westbrook coming off the bench

According to The Athletic’s Sam Amick, the organization is willing to let new head coach Darvin Hamm make any “difficult rotational decisions that may lie ahead in the interests of team success”.

This apparently includes the possibility of founding Patrick Beverley or Dennis Schroder, who just agreed to rejoin the teamor even Kendrick Nunn via Westbrook.

The idea of ​​this actually happening is wild. There are a lot of moving parts that need to align to make it work this way. But the fact that they’re considering it speaks to how wrong the Westbrook experiment went for LA.

In fact, this whole report feels like a warning shot in Westbrook’s bow. Training camp is coming up soon. The organization is essentially saying he can’t arrive with a comfortable feeling. Despite his talent and production history, nothing is guaranteed. He needs to prove more valuable at team level than someone like Beverley or Schroder to secure a starting spot.

You better believe someone like Beverley won’t make it easy while Schroder has already had success with the team.

We’ll see how Westbrook reacts to this kind of news. Will he pull himself together and become the team player Hamm wants? Or is this whole saga getting even uglier?