It was hard to imagine Russell Westbrook being a Laker for the 2022-23 season, but that’s where the team stands despite Murphy’s Law taking over in the SoCal native’s first year in Los Angeles.
It was apparent things were going awry very early in 2021-22, and the rest of the season played out with frustrations piling up and boiling over in Westbrook’s exit interview. That led to an offseason with Westbrook consistently in trade rumors, and it seemed more a matter of when and where he would be traded, not if.
But as the sour feelings of the season slipped more into the distant past, the possibility of Russ coming back turned into a certainty.