It's all but official. Patrick Beverley and Russell Westbrook are set to be teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers.
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reports that LA has come to terms on a trade with the Utah Jazz acquiring the spitfire guard in exchange for Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson.
Lakers and Jazz are expected to finalize the deal on Thursday morning, delivering Beverley to LA after a brief stayover with Jazz. No picks involved in the deal, per sources. https://t.co/s4FjjrHu4q
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 25, 2022
Now, there's still a lot of time between now and the start of the season. The Lakers might not be done wheeling and dealing just yet. But as things stand, Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley will have to learn to co-exist with one another after years and years of sizzling beef between them.
Now some of Westbrook's past shade at Pat Bev has come out of the woodwork. A couple of years back, during Russ's time with the Houston Rockets, he called Beverley out for “tricking” everybody into thinking he was actually a good defender.
"Pat Bev trick y’all, man, like he playing defense. He don’t guard nobody, man. He just running around, doing nothing.”
—Westbrook on Pat Bev's defense
(via @TheProducerNick) pic.twitter.com/D37yiqUz41
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 14, 2019
That noise wasn't forgotten by the newest Laker guard. Just a few months back with Russell Westbrook in the middle of arguably the worst season of his career, Patrick Beverley took the opportunity to blast the Brodie by calling him “The Real Magician”.
I remember when somebody said all I do is run around and I trick y’all 😂 well my boy is The Real Magician this year.
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) February 10, 2022
The two fiery personalities have been at each other's throats since the 2013 playoffs when Pat Bev's lunge at Westbrook ended up injuring him and derailing the OKC Thunder's chances of making it back to the NBA Finals after getting there the previous year.
The Lakers were already a polarizing group to begin with. Now with Patrick Beverley in the mix, things are about to hit a whole new level of spicy.
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