Don’t believe the hype, the Thunder will not be trading for Russell Westbrook anytime soon.
The Oklahoma City Thunder might have lost out on Kevin Durant, but the seismic shock of KD actually leaving OKC has caused rumors of another high profile split. In the wake of Durant turning heel and joining the Warriors, rumors began to swirl that the thunder were then looking to move Russell Westbrook to clean house and completely being to rebuild.
Don’t believe the hype, at least not yet.
While the rumors surfacing around the time of Durant’s departure were more knee-jerk than anything, it seems that the Westbrook trade rumors have only been reduced to a simmer and not taken off the hot stove altogether.
This week saw those rumors flare up thanks to everyone marking an ‘x’ in Boston on the map of where Westbrook will end up.
It all started with some speculation by Howard Beck — who was in no way reporting that there was a trade anywhere near imminent — about how Boston is the most likely landing spot for Westbrook.
"What I’m hearing here in Las Vegas [at the NBA Summer League] from some GMs is that, not only do they think Westbrook will get traded, [they think] that it’ll be sooner rather than later, probably before the season starts, and that the most likely destination right now would be the Boston Celtics."
This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard Westbrook rumored to be going to the Celtics, as this seems to be an annual thing. It’s not as regular as the rumors about Kyrie Irving being traded straight up for Chris Paul, but it’s often enough that this isn’t all that new.
When this was brought up previously, though, it was Rajon Rondo who was rumored to be involved in a trade. That wasn’t good enough and for good reason — it would have been a cataclysmic trade for the Thunder.
Just ask the Mavericks how well trading for Rondo went.
Simply put, the Celtics are not going to be acquiring Westbrook in any other form other than signing him in free agency. More importantly, the Thunder are not going to be trading Westbrook for anything less than they think he’s worth — which is a whole lot.
The only way Westbrook is dealt is if:
A) He commits long-term to his new team before a deal is struck and the paper work for a long term deal is filed before the wheels go up on his plane in OKC.
B) This team has the assets to make a deal happen
Finding one or the other isn’t hard, but finding a team that falls into both A and B is next to impossible. The only team that could possibly offer OKC enough in return for Westbrook and be a destination where he’d sign long term is Boston — hence the rumors.
It’s possible that a deal gets worked out eventually, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon and OKC — and Westbrook — seem more hellbent focused on proving Kevin Durant wrong than finding a way to create a sequel to his departure.
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