After roughly a season-and-a-half of Russell Westbrook causing drama with the Los Angeles Lakers, Ray Westbrook may now be getting in on the action.
In a series of tweets over the weekend, Ray, the younger brother of Lakers guard Russell, appeared to react to the team’s fourth-quarter decision during their game on Sunday against the Washington Wizards.
Russell was benched for the final 7:19 of the contest, despite the Lakers being down two injured starters in Patrick Beverley and Anthony Davis. Lakers coach Darvin Ham opted to close with 19-year-old rookie Max Christie, a superior three-point shooter, instead.
The Lakers were trailing 100-98 at the time of Russell’s benching but pulled out a 119-117 victory (albeit thanks to some luck after a near-turnover led to a wide-open dunk for Thomas Bryant out of a scramble situation).
LEBRON JAMES TO THOMAS BRYANT FOR THE GAME-WINNER 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Vbpiy6hU3q
— NBA TV (@NBATV) December 19, 2022
As Russell was benched, Ray took to Twitter with a couple of interesting posts in apparent reaction to the move.
“LOL,” Ray wrote in one tweet before posting another one after the game that read, “Word of the week is respect.”
https://twitter.com/whynotraywest/status/1604700941478875136
https://twitter.com/whynotraywest/status/1604729525220216832
Russell, who was demoted to the second unit in the early going of the season, has actually accepted his new role surprisingly well. With improved spacing and the ability to be the primary ball-handler, Russell is putting up better per-36 numbers in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks than last year on the Lakers (though his shooting splits are still in the toilet at 40/27/68).
Granted, one thing that Russell really does not like is getting benched for crunchtime (which he took exception to with the previous Lakers coach). It looks like his brother Ray has a real issue with it as well.
