One of the darkest moments in recent Los Angeles Lakers history was the year they traded for Russell Westbrook. Westbrook, a nine-time NBA All-Star, two-time scoring champion and former league MVP, was acquired in the summer of 2021 for Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Montrezl Harrell and the draft rights to Isaiah Jackson, and the following season became an unmitigated disaster.
Although Westbrook averaged a strong 18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 7.1 assists a game during the 2021-22 campaign, he never fit in. The Lakers, who were picked by plenty of people to reach at least the Western Conference finals, went 33-49 and missed the play-in tournament.
Westbrook was mercilessly slammed by fans and the media throughout the season, and a decent
amount of that criticism was hyperbolic. His inability to play the role he needed to fill wasn't the only reason the team did so poorly, as Trevor Ariza, a forward on its roster that year, succinctly pointed out during an appearance on the "Bootleg Kev" podcast.
"Everything went wrong," Ariza said. "Everybody was old as [expletive] on the team."
After landing Westbrook, the Lakers filled out their roster with a group of players who turned out to be past their expiration dates. Ariza (age 36 at the time), Carmelo Anthony (37), Dwight Howard (35), DeAndre Jordan (33), Rajon Rondo (35) and Wayne Ellington (33) were all brought in, leading to a series of "old man" memes about the roster.
Of those players, only Jordan was still playing in the NBA the following season.
Ariza also alluded to how poorly that roster was constructed with not enough outside shooting and how Westbrook was expected to play a role that he was ill-suited for.
"When there's no space inside the paint, you can't tell Russ, who is the point guard, to go stand in the corner and expect him to shoot 40%. He has no rhythm to the game."
Westbrook was eventually traded in February 2023, along with three little-used bench players and a future first-round draft pick, for D'Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley. At the time of the trade, Los Angeles was 25-30. It finished the season with a 43-39 record and made it to the Western Conference finals.
The initial trade that brought Westbrook to town gutted the team of critical depth and tradable assets for years. Perhaps only now, after LeBron James departed to join the Philadelphia 76ers and freed up lots of salary cap space, is L.A. starting to recover in that department.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Trevor Ariza on why the Lakers failed with Russell Westbrook
