Russell Westbrook and His Agent Reportedly Working With Thunder on Trade After Paul George Deal
By Thomas Carannante
You had to have known this was coming.
On early Saturday morning (or late Friday night, however you look at it), the Oklahoma City Thunder traded Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers for a tremendous haul of draft picks as well as Danilo Gallinari and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. That effectively signaled the Thunder were headed toward a retool or a potential rebuild.
And it now officially looks like it will be the latter following the report of Russell Westbrook and his agent working with the team on possible trade scenarios.
ESPN Sources: Russell Westbrook and his agent Thad Foucher are engaged with OKC GM Sam Presti on next steps for the All-Star guard, including the possibility of trade this summer. https://t.co/S69nu8Phqd
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 6, 2019
And honestly, it makes sense for both sides. The West just kept getting better and better around the Thunder and there wasn't much they could do. Now with George gone, it makes no sense for OKC to waste the rest of Westbrook's prime, nor does it make sense for them to pay that much money for one player if they're not going to contend.
Speaking of his contract, it might be hard to convince teams to take this on, unless the Thunder eat some salary or include one of the first-round picks they got from the Clippers.
If your team makes a bad trade and takes on the bad contract of a point guard, would you rather have:
— Brady Klopfer (@BradyKlopferNBA) July 6, 2019
Chris Paul: 3/$124M, age 34, injury concerns
Russell Westbrook: 4/$171M, age 30, style that suggests horrendous regression
John Wall: 4/$171M, age 28, Achilles injury
There's always someone though, isn't there? The team you expect the least to pull this off probably will, based on how the last 12 hours has played out.