Google News Westbrook is facing the end of his career. He called an Jokic's agent for help
by FARUK IMAMOVIC | VIEW 33803
Westbrook has found a new agent in Jeff Schwarz of Excel Sports. Westbrook parted ways with his longtime agent Thad Foucher in July due to "irreconcilable differences" and attitudes. Foucher believed that staying with the Lakers is the best option for Westbrook this summer, which the player obviously does not agree with, and the Lakers are tirelessly trying to trade him, but so far without success.
The ideal outcome for the Lakers would be a trade with the Brooklyn Nets for Kyrie Irving, and the team from Los Angeles has also talked with the Indiana Pacers about a package of Buddy Hield and Myles Turner, but in both cases the negotiations broke down over the amount of future draft picks the Lakers should attach to get rid of expensive stars.
Will Westbrook ever play in the NBA again?
Westbrook will earn 47.5 million dollars in the next season, and nobody in the NBA really wants such an expensive player, whose reputation was completely buried by an unsuccessful season with the Lakers.
American media believe that Westbrook, even in the case of a trade, would receive a contract termination in a new environment and become a free agent. Although new coach Darvin Ham says all the right things and assures the public that Westbrook can fit into his vision of the Lakers, there is a possibility that he may simply remove him from the team if he does not get what he expects from him and the Lakers fail to find a trade partner.
In order to prevent the worst possible outcome, that is, the termination of the contract that would most likely end his NBA career, Westbrook hired a new agent, Jeff Schwarz, who represents a number of other NBA players, the most famous of whom is Nikola Jokić.
He signed a supermax extension with the Denver Nuggets last month, which will pay him $264 million over five years.
Like Iverson and Anthony
Westbrook's situation is very reminiscent of the final stages of the careers of Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony, former superstars who could not accept that they were no longer what they once were.
This, combined with the health of his daughter, led to an early career break for Iverson, and Anthony was banished from the NBA for more than a year, before he got another chance in Portland and then in the Lakers.