LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers are trading Russell Westbrook to Utah and recapturing Minnesota guard D’Angelo Russell in a three-team, eight-player deal, a person with knowledge of the trade told The Associated Press Wednesday night.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the teams failed to announce the big deal, which was made before the NBA closed on Thursday.
Los Angeles is also getting guard Malik Beasley and forward Jarred Vanderbilt from the Jazz, strengthening its core around LeBron James to kickstart its bubbly season. The Lakers fell to 25-30 on Tuesday James set the NBA career recordand they sit 13th in the 15-team Western Conference.
The Lakers are sending Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damian Jones and their first-round pick to Utah with Westbrook in 2027.
ESPN and The Athletic first reported on the trade. Those outlets also said Minnesota will get Mike Conley and Utah’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker, along with three second-round picks.
Westbrook’s tenure at his hometown club lasted just 130 tumultuous games. The 2017 NBA MVP never thrived for extended periods with James and injury-stricken Anthony Davis, and struggled to mold his possession-heavy game into a more complementary role.
A move to the bench last fall provided minor improvements in a dismal 2021-22 season, but Westbrook still seemed deeply uncomfortable with the Lakers, who are in danger of missing the playoffs for a second straight season. Westbrook averaged 17.4 points, 7.2 assists, 6.9 rebounds and 3.7 turnovers per game during his time in Los Angeles, where fans regularly bemoaned his poor shooting and turnovers.
Westbrook, 34, makes about $47 million in the final year of his contract. A few months after the Lakers angered a large portion of their worldwide fan base by not trading Westbrook over the summer, they traded him for Russell, who played his first two NBA seasons with the Lakers after beating him with the second overall win in 2015 had selected Draft.
Russell was a rookie in Kobe Bryant’s final season, and the point guard was the consistently most entertaining part of two poor Lakers teams before Magic Johnson traded him to Brooklyn in 2017. Russell is now traded for the fourth time in his eight NBA seasons.
Russell is averaging 17.9 points, 6.2 assists and 3.1 rebounds while earning a best 46.5% of his with Minnesota in the final year of a contract that has netted him more than $31 million this season career scored. His style at either end of the court could also complement James and Davis better than Westbrook, although the Lakers will have little time to figure it out.
The Timberwolves courted Russell hard while he was on the market in July 2019, when Brooklyn finally struck a sign-and-trade deal that sent Kevin Durant to the Nets and Russell to the Golden State. Wolves eventually acquired Russell as of the February 2020 deadline and teamed him with draft-class buddy Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Russell-Towns pairing never really caught on, partly due to injuries to each player which often prevented them from being on the pitch at the same time. Drafting Anthony Edwards with the first overall pick of 2020, Wolves added another hard-hitting attacking player to the lineup whose value is minimized without frequent touches.
Wolves made the playoffs in 2022, but only recently did Russell and Edwards really click after coach Chris Finch made Edwards the primary ball carrier and put Russell in an off-ball position to better maximize his shooting abilities.
Russell is shooting a career-best 39.1% from 3-point range after making five or more shots from deep in six of his last 17 games.
Conley is more of a pure distribute first point guard than Russell, who has also never been a tenacious full-back. Conley, 35, is averaging 10.7 points and 7.7 assists in his fourth season for Utah.
Conley will be reuniting with big man Rudy Gobert, whose transition to Minnesota has been slow. Conley and Gobert were a good fit for Jazz, and their collective experience in the playoffs should also help a Wolves team that has been remarkably fickle this season while trying to keep up in the crowded race.
The Lakers will see an even bigger reunion in Minnesota, with Vanderbilt and Beasley heading to LA, where Patrick Beverley is already playing — though Beverley himself has been featured in plenty of trade rumors in the final hours before the deadline. All four of those players helped the Timberwolves finish No. 7 for the playoffs last season before Vanderbilt, Beasley and Beverley were sold to Jazz in the Gobert deal.
Beasley is a strong outside shooter, averaging 13.4 points while hitting 35.9% of his 3-pointers for the Jazz. The 6-foot-9 Vanderbilt has averaged 8.3 points and 7.9 rebounds per game and excelled on defense and on the boards while starting 41 of his 52 games.
The Lakers began revamping their roster last month, trading Kendrick Nunn to Washington for Rui Hachimura, who has been fitting in well as a wing option so far. Los Angeles also tried to take on Kyrie Irving, but Brooklyn sent the controversial guard to Dallas.
Toscano-Anderson and Jones played almost no part in the offseason after joining the Lakers.
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AP sportswriter Dave Campbell from Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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