The four best Russell Westbrook trades right now
— -- Russell Westbrook can leave Oklahoma City a year from now.
Is this the time to trade him -- before he can walk away?
What deals would make the most sense?
Our NBA Insiders give their top four moves -- while two writers argue against a trade.
Los Angeles Lakers
Lakers get: Westbrook, Steven Adams and OKC's 2017 first-round pick.
Thunder get: D'Angelo Russell, Brandon Ingram, Julius Randle, Lou Williams and Nick Young
David Thorpe: L.A. is the likely destination for Westbrook, so the Lakers could just sit and wait a year.
But why not be able to offer him the richest contract possible next July? Getting Adams would allow the Lakers to have a potential All-Star for years to come, and they can move Timofey Mozgov at the trade deadline.
Why would the Lakers insist on Adams? Because they would be giving up three high-upside players who are on below-market rookie contracts, while Westbrook would be free to leave the Lakers in 2017 if he wanted to. Adams would be the price of taking on the Thunder's risk that Westbrook might depart.
This trade would give the Lakers two fantastic building blocks and set them up for next year's free agency. And the pick ensures a young talent to help them stay afloat down the line.
For the Lakers, moving their three best building blocks would hurt -- especially Ingram -- but they are far from ready to play with the likes of Westbrook, Adams and Luol Deng. Also -- the trade would allow Clarkson to develop in a better, winning environment.
OKC would three very talented young guys to start over, as they did when they drafted Kevin Durant, Westbrook and James Harden in succession from 2007 to 2009. While these players won't hit the same heights, likely, but it's following the model similar to the one that allowed Presti and the Thunder to build a great team in the first place.
Williams and Young might yield assets in follow-up trades.
The Thunder would probably want to hold on to the pick, but with all this young talent coming back -- and don't forget Victor Oladipo, Cameron Payne and Enes Kanter -- they have enough player development challenges ahead.
Regardless, in just a few years time, OKC would be back in the thick of things.
Boston Celtics
Thunder get: Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder, Amir Johnson, and rights to the Celtics' first-round pick swap with the Nets in 2017
Celtics get: Westbrook
Since Russ is a transcendent NBA talent -- and top five in ESPN's predictive real plus-minus (RPM) -- teams would surely line up with jaw-dropping trade offers to secure his services if he were made available.
Players of Westbrook's caliber are almost never traded in their prime and -- as Sam Hinkie never tired of reminding us -- superstars are a prerequisite for any team's credible championship run. So I suspect the Celtics would be willing to deal at least three of their prized assets to get Westbrook.
The proposed trade would leave Boston with a hole at small forward, but they could still address it with another trade (or free agent pickup). And even without further roster tweaks, their new core of Westbrook, Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Al Horford, Jared Sullinger (assuming they re-sign the restricted free agent) and Kelly Olynyk should vault them into contention with the Cavs in the East.
The deal also makes sense for OKC. The Thunder would nab a coveted lottery pick, bring home native son Marcus Smart and yield an emerging two-way threat in Jae Crowder. Smart and Crowder would fit nicely with Victor Oladipo, Andre Roberson and Steven Adams to give the Thunder a stable of young defensive studs, a few complementary scorers ( Anthony Morrow, Enes Kanter and Ersan Ilyasova) and a couple of talented youngsters (Payne and Domantas Sabonis).
Yes, losing Westbrook (and Durant) would be a crushing blow, but such a trade could help kickstart a promising OKC rebuild.
Bradford Doolittle: Right after the Durant news broke, I tweeted wondering whether Danny Ainge had already called about Westbrook, or if he'd allow Sam Presti a respectful time to recover.
That knee-jerk reaction -- that the Celtics are the obvious fit -- remains true for me. Westbrook would boost Boston into the elite, teaming with Al Horford to make the Celtics a challenging opponent for Cleveland in a possible East final.
As a slight variation on the trade proposed by Steve Ilardi above, Boston has the draft stock to spare and can include Isaiah Thomas, Smart or Jaylen Brown, along with Brooklyn's 2017 first-rounder (a pick-swap option) as a starting point.
For the Celtics, there's a risk that Westbrook would leave after one season. But I'd gamble that a year of winning in Boston and playing for Brad Stevens would sell him on the organizational culture. Horford and Westbrook would be the best non-Cleveland one-two punch in the East, and the Celtics would still have a deep roster of top role players and defenders around them, and ways to build further.
The Thunder would begin again in their quest for a franchise star and would swap roles with the Celtics. Oklahoma City would remain a playoff contender and hope that the Brooklyn pick pays off in a new foundation player.
Sacramento Kings
Kings get: Westbrook and Kyle Singler
Thunder get: DeMarcus Cousins and Willie Cauley-Stein
Tom Haberstroh: I think the best deal involves the Lakers for Russell and Ingram, as David Thorpe outlined above, but I'll also throw this one in the pile: Sacramento trades Cousins and Cauley-Stein for Westbrook and Singler.
The Kings change the face of the franchise from Cousins to Westbrook, and Westbrook gets to head closer to home in California. I'm not sure Sacramento signs off on the deal without an assurance from Westbrook on a long-term deal, but it has to be better than the rotten situation with Cousins.
Lakers, Celtics, Magic and Suns
Kevin Pelton: Shortly after Durant's announcement, I looked at the big picture for the Thunder and talked about whether they should trade Westbrook now.
As discussed in the column, the Lakers might be willing to offer Russell as the centerpiece of a Westbrook trade, since Russell would probably be redundant if they were to sign Westbrook in 2017, as some expect.
The Celtics could build an offer around Isaiah Thomas as a replacement point guard and the draft picks they have coming from the Brooklyn Nets.
And teams like the Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns might look at trading their young talent for Westbrook as a way to jump-start the rebuilding process.
Don't trade Russ
Amin Elhassan: Honestly? I wouldn't automatically assume trading Westbrook to be a foregone conclusion.
Teams search high and low for a franchise-caliber superstar when they lose one. OKC is in the fortunate position of already having one.
If it's the fear of losing him next year, there's a way to either confirm or completely refute it. As Brian Windhorst pointed out, the departure of Durant leaves OKC with considerable cap space. They can approach Westbrook with a renegotiation and extension, giving him approximately $8 million this year to bring him to the current max, then keep him in 2017-18 (which would take him to his 10-year veteran summer and make him eligible for highest max percentage of the cap) and include a player option on 2018-19.
If they can make this kind of deal with Westbrook, that buys the Thunder some certainty in the near future, allowing them to build the team around Russ while giving Westbrook more money now and the flexibility to test free agency as a 10-year vet.
Jereamias Engelmann: Yeah, don't trade him. If the first two days of this free agency have shown anything, it's that even average players have an easy time getting maximum deals. This, in turn, means that the true superstars are incredibly valuable. They are, by comparison, extremely underpaid.
I would much rather be paying maximum money to a true difference maker -- Westbrook was sixth in RPM this season -- than to the likes of Harrison Barnes (RPM -1.3) or DeMar DeRozan (-0.1).
If you have a superstar you hold on to him with both hands, unless you get a player of the same caliber back -- but I don't see Chris Paul, Kawhi Leonard or Draymond Green on the trading block
