In trading Talen Horton-Tucker to Utah for Patrick Beverley, the Lakers in essence admitted to the sunk cost he became almost as soon as they unnecessarily chose him over Alex Caruso. Now, will only a few weeks left of the offseason, Rob Pelinka will have to address his next almost immediately harmful decision: Russell Westbrook.
At last year’s trade deadline, Pelinka and Lakers brass chose to kick the can down the road to eventually make a decision on Westbrook once they’d have more assets to work with. This launched a hilarious news cycle of subtweets, finger pointing and even t-shirt admiration as the Lakers were essentially tanking a season in which LeBron James was somehow still good enough to lead the league in scoring at 38 years old.