After all the offseason talks about Russell Westbrook coming off the bench, the Los Angeles Lakers ended up starting the veteran guard alongside Patrick Beverley in their season opener against th Warriors. Naturally, it raised plenty of eyebrows around the NBA.

NBA Twitter particularly showed no mercy to the Lakers as plenty of fans and followers questioned the team's decision. It would have been fine had Darvin Ham and co. said it before, but all the signs pointed to Russ coming off the bench.

Ham did say recently that the door was open for Westbrook to start, but the general belief was that they were going to further experiment on him as the lead player off the bench.

Some fans also couldn't help but compare the Lakers' starting backcourt to that of the Warriors. After all, having Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley match up with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson just looks unfair … for LA that is.

The Lakers' Westbrook experiment failed big time in 2021-22, which is why there were plenty of hopes that the team would trade the explosive guard and move on from him. While it looked like LA tried, they just can't seem to find the right deal.

Los Angeles and its front office probably wants to see if Ham can make things work with Westbrook. However, until they prove that they can win with Russ as their starting guard, the team will surely receive more flak for their decision.