With Russell Westbrook’s trade, the Lakers went to Hollywood while the Wizards unleashed their future: Hollinger – The Athletic



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You did, Washington.

Somehow you broke John Wall’s contract, and along the way things happened that really helped your team.

Thursday’s trade deal to send Russell Westbrook to the Lakers completed work started a year ago with Wall’s trade in Houston and allows the Wizards the flexibility to put a real team around Bradley Beal.

Surprisingly, the final cost to securing one of the worst contract extensions in league history was a Washington first-round trade in 2023 or 2024, quite possibly, for the Lakers’ first in 2022, a year of Westbrook and three mid-term average players on decent contracts that won’t negatively impact the Wizards’ short or long term image.

It’s a small miracle, to put it bluntly, a release day for the Washington franchise. Is it possible that Washington’s motto over the past 20 years – life, freedom, and the pursuit of the eighth seed – can now pivot towards higher goals? Are the Wizards set to get (gasp) good in two or three years?

It seems that it is possible now. Washington turned Westbrook’s contract – a contract that pays him $ 44 million next year and $ 47 million the following year – into the center’s expiring deal



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