Los Angeles Lakers guard Russell Westbrook has never been the most reliable shooter from beyond the arc. For his career, Westbrook has made 1.1 threes on 3.7 attempts per night (30.4 percent), peaking during his MVP campaign with a career-best 2.5 threes per game on 7.2 attempts a night (34.3 percent).

But now that Westbrook has declined to the point where his strengths don't even move the needle in considerable ways anymore, his shooting woes have become an even more glaring and maddening flaw in his game.

During the Lakers' 0-3 start, which included an 0-11 shooting display from Russell Westbrook during the Lakers' defeat to intracity rivals Los Angeles Clippers, opposing defenses have dared Westbrook to shoot at such an unfathomable degree. Unfortunately, the 6'3 guard has been unable to make defenses pay for sagging off him on the perimeter, making only one three out of 12 attempts thus far in the new season.

To make matters worse, according to Kevin O'Connor of The Ringer, Westbrook's jumpshots have only been contested 41.2 percent of the time, the lowest such rate since the stat was tracked by Second Spectrum since 2013. In fact, over the past decade, only Joakim Noah and Westbrook's former teammate Andre Roberson were ignored more than half the time on the perimeter.

In the early stages of the season, the next most disrespected “shooter” in the league to Russell Westbrook is Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon, whose shots have only been contested 60 percent of the time, around 19 percentage points higher than Westbrook's worrisome stat.

This statistic should be extremely concerning for Lakers fans. In today's NBA, a player with no gravity on the court has no business spending time on it, especially when that player continues to barf up ill-advised jumpshots early in the shot clock.

The Lakers' chokejob against the Portland Trail Blazers in their third game should be more than enough evidence to show just how far Russ has fallen in the NBA's pecking order. The Blazers put center Jusuf Nurkic on Westbrook in the fourth quarter and the Lakers ended up losing 106-104 in the end.

For all the talk about Russell Westbrook putting in the work to be a better fit alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Russ is just who he is, especially at this point in his career. Now 33 years old, the Lakers ought to know better than force a square peg into a round hole, and cut Westbrook loose for spare parts that complement the Lakers' core in a manner that lends itself more conveniently to winning.