After then-Rockets teammate James Harden scored 47 points in a 2019 win over Patrick Beverley’s Clippers, Russell Westbrook said: “Pat Bev trick y’all, man. Like he’s playing defense. He don’t guard nobody, man. He’s just running around doing nothing.”
Beverley could have pointed out Harden scored just four points on 1-of-9 shooting with Beverley defending him and 43 points on 11-of-17 shooting against other defenders. Or Beverley could have noted the irony of Westbrook calling out phony defensive effort.
Instead, Beverley waited more than two years to send this tweet.
Beverley:
I remember when somebody said all I do is run around and I trick y’all 😂 well my boy is The Real Magician this year.
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) February 10, 2022
Why Thursday? Westbrook didn’t even play in the Lakers’ embarrassing loss to the Trail Blazers the night before.
There haven’t really been bad times to bag on Westbrook this season, though. He has been dismal throughout the year. This is a longstanding feud that doesn’t need an obvious spark.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, they couldn’t just make Westbrook disappear before the trade deadline. His contract is prohibitively large.
But there was one addition in Los Angeles yesterday: “The Real Magician” as a nickname for Westbrook in this stage of his career.