Mauricio Codocea
07/29/2021 21:30
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 07/29/2021 9:34 PM
The NBA celebrates its traditional draft on Thursday night, the ceremony in which the best young talents who will arrive in the league are chosen.
It is a day that equips future stars but also leaves negotiations for players who are already in the circus.
And in the last hours, what may well be
"the" bomb of this market was announced
: the agreement between the Washington Wizards and the Los Angeles Lakers, who want to add Russell Westbrook to build a fearsome trio with LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
In the afternoon, according to ESPN journalist Adrian Wojnarowski, one of the most informed about the efforts carried out by the executive offices of the franchises, the Lakers were "close to an agreement to acquire Russell Westbrook."
In the Argentine night, the same journalist confirmed that "there was an agreement" and another of the best dates, Shams Charania, added details: it will be Westbrook and two second-round elections of the 2024 and 2028 drafts in exchange for
Kyle Kuzma , Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Montrezl Harrell
and the 22nd pick in tonight's draft.
Russell Westbrook is coming off playing for the Washington Wizards.
AP Photo / Ben Margot
Westbrook is coming off
a great season
at the Wizards, a team that was presumed to be a bottom table but which he led to the play-in, a new previous instance in which the last two playoffs are defined for each conference.
The point guard is a player who is usually looked at with the eye of prejudice.
Historically
accused of being an individualist and not very attached to favoring collective success
, in this last season he knew how to adapt to a team that had another perimeter with very high goals (Bradley Beal, who was in fact the top scorer in the championship).
As a result, the MVP points average for the 2016/17 season went from
27.2 during
his time at Houston Rockets (the previous season) to a more "humble"
22.2.
He has also been singled out as a basketball player looking for individual records without worrying about team play.
That vision of his person has been sharpened since
between the 2016/17 and 2018/19 seasons he
achieved the feat of
averaging a triple-double
in all of them, something that the mythical had only achieved (and in a single tournament in the 60s)
Oscar Robertson
.
He even did it again this past season, adding to those 22.2 points,
11.7 assists and 11.5 rebounds.
All those critical arguments lack sufficient solidity when, in addition to what was seen of Westbrook in Washington, it is repaired in the fact that the perimeter teams
won 75% of the games
in which he reached ten in points, rebounds and assists.
The reasons
Russell Westbrook and James Harden failed to be champions together at the Houston Rockets.
Now they will be rivals in two of the teams with trios of stars.
Reuters photo
The Lakers have an obvious problem that conspired against their chances of winning the two-time championship in the last playoffs.
Its two stars are an old player like LeBron (he is 36 years old) who in recent seasons has been involved in physical problems at times and one like Anthony Davis who, despite his 28, has questionable durability: he
never completed a tournament without missing matches.
With only one and in difficulties it did not reach them: Phoenix Suns
surpassed them with authority
in the first round and beat them in six games.
Beyond the Milwaukee Bucks who took the title by beating the Suns in the final, there was some unanimity when it came to marking the great candidate of last season: the Brooklyn Nets of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.
In a recent interview with the Twitch channel 2Ball U2, the legendary former base of the Argentine basketball team
Juan Ignacio Pepe Sánchez
He explained, among other valuable concepts: "The NBA is a league of trends.
The franchises think about how to beat the champion
."
From those places you can understand the search for the Lakers:
a dynamite trio
like the one that, until Harden and Irving's injuries, was the one with the most chances to lift the Larry O'Brien trophy, knowing that it is frankly possible that one of the two stars he has today suffers an injury.
And at the same time, a star point guard who gives the team a quality leap.
In the last season the target was the German
Dennis Schröder
, who was somewhat in debt in his first opportunity in a truly top team.
This also implies that, most likely, Chris Paul, who was a candidate to reinforce the Lakers (he is a good friend of LeBron)
will continue with the Suns
.
Look also
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, day 7: the agenda of the Argentines with the classic Argentina-Brazil in handball and key duels in hockey and volleyball
Tokyo 2020: Slovenia won again by beating and overcame the start of the legendary Barcelona Dream Team 92
