The Los Angeles Lakers traded away Kentavious Caldwell-Pope as part of the move for Russell Westbrook and the former starter has relished seeing the purple and gold franchise struggle early on.
Caldwell-Pope was asked about the Lakers’ early struggles and couldn’t contain his laughter in a now-viral clip from one of his press conferences.
The question that had Caldwell-Pope giggling: “You’re having a great season while the team that traded you (Lakers) has been a failure. Any satisfaction from that?”
“I’m happy where I’m at,” Kentavious-Caldwell Pope answered after composing himself. “I wasn’t really too upset about what happened with the trade.
“Brad [Beal] is a great friend,” the ex-Lakers wing continued. “We always talked about playing with each other. So it was no biggie for me already coming off a championship. It was time to move on.”
Lakers Still Have Time to Turn Things Around
At 8-9, it’s obvious that the new-look Lakers are taking some additional time to gel. However, it’s hard to call the team a failure so early, especially considering some of the injuries the team has dealt with early on. That being said, LeBron James knows his team needs to start hitting its stride and showing the potential many saw when the roster was assembled in the offseason.
“We damn sure need to play better, no matter who is in the lineup,” James told reporters after the team’s latest loss to the Celtics. “It’s never that ‘we’ve got 65 games and we’ll figure it out then.’ … There’s no level of panic, but there should be some sense of urgency any time we hit the floor.
“I feel like we had that for moments throughout this game tonight, and then at some point throughout the game we didn’t,” James continued. “We’ve got to figure out how we can keep that sense of urgency for as close to 48 minutes as possible.”
James is confident his Lakers can pull it off and improve. However, that’ll take a level of being uncomfortable and pushing for greatness.
“I’ve always felt comfortable when things are uncomfortable, so I look forward to the process of us trying to get better,” James said, before quickly correcting himself, “Us getting better. Not trying. We will get better. We will improve. But that’s just being uncomfortable. We should be uncomfortable every single day in our film sessions and our walkthroughs, and our practices, and even when we’re out on the floor until we right the ship.”
Westbrook Upset With Questions About Chemistry
The addition of Westbrook has been criticized thoroughly early in the season, with the former MVP learning to play alongside James and Anthony Davis. He’s also had the turnover bug on occasion and has had a tough time scoring. But it’s 20 games into the season and Westbrook is sick of answering questions about when the chemistry will emerge.
“After each game everybody asks the same questions. And I’m tired of giving the same answers. It’s the same question every game, every time we lose, it’s ‘hey, how long do you think it’s going to take?’ We don’t know. When we win, it’s still going to take some time,” Westbrook said. “Throughout the season there’s going to be ups and there’s going to be downs, it’s about what you do as a team. Either you can pull apart, or you can come together and figure it out. And we know that we have the team to be able to figure it out and the experience to be able to do so. Our job is to get in there and do it.”
Westbrook is averaging 18.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and 8.6 assists this season. However, he’s shooting just 42.6% from the field and 29.7% from beyond the arc.
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