To be frank, Russell Westbrook had a miserable first season with the Los Angeles Lakers and everyone knows it. New head coach Darvin Ham is hoping to help him play a lot better in 2022-23 though. That's if he's not traded to the Brooklyn Nets in a Kyrie Irving blockbuster, which is still a possibility.

On Friday, Brian Windhorst discussed on First Take that Westbrook refused to take accountability for the poor campaign in his exit interview at the end of the season, essentially throwing Frank Vogel under the bus for not utilizing him properly. One Twitter user quoted the tweet and said “Lies lies lies lies lies” and it appears Russell Westbrook agreed because he liked the response:

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That's disappointing. It was very clear that Westbrook's fit alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis didn't work by any means. Blaming your coach seems rather immature.

But, Ham seems to believe he can bring the best out of Russ again and “redirect” him. This is what he said to Marc Spears of Andscape on Thursday:

“I’ve had some great interactions with Russ, in person, over dinner, over the phone, over text messages. I love Russell Westbrook, man. Just his mentality, his approach. Just to see him, a guy of that magnitude and everything he’s done in the league to get hated on.”

But being me, I got a wholehearted plan, a clear plan on how I’m going to use him. I showed it to him, sat down, brought stuff up for him. I think he’s going to flourish. We ain’t going to try to curtail his energy. We’re just going to diversify it, redirect it.

We'll have to see if that works. Considering that he evidently isn't taking the blame for his poor performances last season, however, it's not exactly a good sign that Russ will be willing to sit back and take Ham's advice. Only time will tell, I suppose.