After losing to the Suns this season, the Lakers officially missed the playoffs. After forming a big three combination of Westbrook + James + Davis in the offseason, and signing a number of strong role players, the Lakers were once regarded as one of the most promising teams to win the championship this season. But after the start of the season, they have a very bad record for various reasons, and now they have not made the playoffs, resulting in many media and fans being extremely disappointed in them.
Among them, Wei Shao's poor performance is undoubtedly an important reason for the Lakers' poor performance this season. This season, Westbrook has played a very disappointing season, after all, in the past season, he was still a superstar who averaged a triple-double per game and led the Wizards to the playoffs in the second half of the season. In this season, Wei Shao has averaged only 18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game in 78 games for the Lakers, shooting 44.4% from the field and only 29.8% from three-point range, all of which are new lows in recent seasons.
In terms of scoring, Westbrook's shooting percentage this season is really unbearable, although he has not been good at shooting since his career, but his shooting this season is really outrageous. In many games, Wei Shao has had an embarrassing situation of empty shots and three non-sticks, as well as dry pull jump shots and smash timers. Affected by his age, Westbrook's breakthrough speed has dropped greatly this season, which has led to the power of the impact basket that he was good at. In such a situation, Wei Shao can be said to have become a burden to the team on the offensive end, when he is in an empty position, he can not always hit the shot when he receives the pass, and when he breaks through with the ball, he often appears to be blocked or missed the basket.
In terms of organization, one of the lakers' willingness to sign Westbrook in the offseason is that they hope that Westbrook can become a qualified organizer, and this season's Westbrook has undoubtedly disappointed them. This season, Westbrook has averaged 3.8 turnovers per game, which he earned by reducing passes and increasing his shots late in the season. At the beginning of the season, Westbrook often made more than 5 mistakes in the game. Wei Shao's mistakes are still incredible in many cases, after all, he often has embarrassing situations on the field of passing the ball to the bench and dribbling the ball.
Because many of the shots and mistakes on the field this season are too funny, Westbrook's game has also been ridiculed by many fans as if watching a comedy. At the beginning of the season, many fans suggested that the Lakers trade Westbrook, but until the end of the trade deadline, the Lakers did not make any moves. This not only makes the Lakers' record in the second half of the season worse and worse, at the same time, the gap between them and Wei Shao is getting deeper and deeper, and there has been a deep crisis of trust, and the current news in many ways confirms that the Lakers have begun to question Wei Shao in many ways.
On the one hand, due to the unprecedented deterioration of Westbrook's shooting this season, in the case of a decrease in the speed of the breakthrough at an increase in age, Westbrook's shooting should be better. On the contrary, Wei Shao, who should have tried more shots, felt extremely bad this season. This has led many to wonder if Westbrook has suffered a serious injury, which led to such a large decline in his shooting without warning. It is revealed that at present, the outside world has even begun to suspect that Wei Shao has concealed the injury, after all, he has not missed too many games because of injuries this season.
In the previous seasons, although Wei Shao's shooting feel was not too good, he was basically able to end the attack with a dunk after the breakthrough, and this season, according to statistics, Wei Shao's dunk shooting rate was only 65%, which means that he often appeared on the field of dunk failure, which is very rare for a player who is good at dunking. Therefore, at present, some people in the Lakers and the league have even begun to wonder whether there is a problem with Wei Shao's hands and eyes, and Wei Shao's team has firmly claimed that Wei Shao did not have injuries to his arms and knees during the examination. In any case, the current discussion about whether Wei Shao concealed injuries was boiling over.
On the other hand, according to the Writers' employees, Wei Shao has not respected the team's head coach Vogel since the first day he came to the Lakers. According to the specific situation, Wei Shao is very dissatisfied with the Lakers' regulations that whoever gets the rebound can dribble through the half, and he believes that he is the team's point guard, and he must take on the responsibility of carrying the ball through the half. But in fact, Vogel still trusts Westbrook very much, because the Lakers have been pressuring him to put Westbrook on the bench this season, but he insists on letting Westbrook be the team's starter.
In any case, as the relationship between the Lakers and Westbrook becomes more and more tense, the latter's departure from the team in the offseason seems to have become an inevitable end. It has been revealed that the Lakers are likely to choose to cut Westbrook in the offseason this season to offer Munch a bigger contract. A large part of the reason for the choice of layoffs is due to the fact that Westbrook's current annual salary is as high as 40 million, and after this season's poor performance, it is difficult for a team to take over this huge contract. And even if there is a team trade, I believe the Lakers can not get the right chips through Wei Shao.
Therefore, cutting Wei Shao seems to be the only option for the Lakers to get rid of this contract, but Wei Shao himself has made it clear that he does not want the team to buy out himself, he believes that accepting the buyout will bring him a stigma, and believes that he is still capable of contributing to a high-level team. For a star like Wei Shao, who has carved pride into his bones, the current ending is undoubtedly difficult for him to accept, according to sources, Wei Shao has been hiding in dark corners for many times this season, and he has no idea who to believe. At the critical stage of his career, the former regular season MVP has faced the biggest challenge.
But no matter what the final outcome is, the most important thing Westbrook should do in this offseason is to try to improve his ability at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends, even if he is bought out by the Lakers next season and joins other teams with a lower salary, he will strive to play his value again. Lower your body, do the best you can, and strive to find your original self in the future.