The Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Denver Nuggets 133-96 on Saturday night. In a season chock full of embarrassments and humiliations, this somehow felt like a new low.
After the game, franchise legend Magic Johnson took to Twitter to admonish this current group for their poor play.
“After being blown out by the Nuggets 133-96, we as Lakers fans can accept being outplayed but we deserve more than a lack of effort and no sense of urgency,” he wrote. “Owner Jeanie Buss, you deserve better.”
During a postgame media session, Westbrook was asked for his response to Johnson’s brutal comments.
Westbrook took the opportunity to offer a blunt reply.
“I do not have a reaction,” he said. “Everybody is entitled, in this world, to their opinion. Regardless of what that it is. You can either take it and run with it or you can take it and put it in one ear and out the other or you cannot respond to it.
“Magic’s entitled to his opinion,” he added. “And he’s not here every day. He’s not around us every day. He’s not aware of what’s going on internally with us and trying to figure things out. But I have no response to that. … Like I said, everyone in this world is entitled to their opinion and that’s that.”
Westbrook finished the Nuggets game with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and incredibly enough 0 turnovers. By his new standards, it was actually an amazing effort. And yet despite that, he still finished with a +/- of -11 and LA got blown out.
The Lakers are now 21-22 on the year and sit seventh in the West. Clearly changes need to be made.
The front office attempted to swoop in and acquire Cam Reddish from the Atlanta Hawks this past week, but their offer was swiftly rejected. Now the focus seems to have shifted to trading Dwight Howard.
Beyond that, the Lakers are one of four teams pushing very hard for a Myles Turner trade, but it remains to be seen if that will ultimately materialize for them. They also spoke to two separate teams about a trade centering around Westbrook, but obviously nothing has happened on that front yet.
Joe Burrow won in more ways than 1 last night. https://t.co/BTfyH9VQzb
— Game 7 (@game7__) January 16, 2022
LA desperately needs to make some sort of move. If they don’t, this season is lost.
Will Rob Pelinka be able to get something done? Time will tell.
Related: Damian Lillard Gets Brutally Honest About Russell Westbrook’s Trash Talk
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
