Buy-Out Market Allow Fresh Starts For Kevin Love & Russell Westbrook

The NBA buy-out market has already seen considerable activity before its March 1st deadline, with even former MVP Russell Westbrook joining the Los Angeles Clippers and former All-Star Kevin Love joining the Miami Heat.

How are those signings going to affect these teams? We’ll have to wait for the NBA to come back after its All-Star break to see, but in the immediate aftermath, both players have landed in places where they’re likely to get minutes.

Russell Westbrook

It’s no secret that Westbrook isn’t a prolific shooter, turns the ball over too much, and isn’t much of an asset defensively. However, taking the glass-half-full approach with his arrival in Los Angeles – well, the second arrival in Los Angeles if we’re being technical about it – there’s no doubt that the Clippers are in need of guards.

The Clippers pivoted away from both John Wall and Reggie Jackson, adding Westbrook, Bones Hyland from the Nuggets, and Eric Gordon from the Rockets, and now sport a brand new backcourt for the remaining 21 games of the season.

Westbrook will inject energy, and quite a bit of it, for the Clippers, who have been mostly the same in recent years, and who rank 25th in the league in pace. There’s something to be said of getting out in transition and relentlessly putting pressure on the rim. Westbrook does just that, and with both Paul George and Kawhi Leonard being more than capable of initiating the offense, and creating looks for themselves, perhaps these Clippers have enough to work with to absorb Westbrook’s other traits.

Because, yes, Westbrook comes with certain strategic challenges.

The fact that the 34-year-old is a subpar shooter often puts bigger emphasis on his teammates to create, and overcome double-teams, sent over by Westbrook’s own man. Westbrook has connected on just 29.3% of his three-pointers over the past six seasons, and opponents are well-aware of his limitations as a shooter.

In fairness to Westbrook, he does cut fairly well off the ball, and make quick reads with the ball in his hands when he does. With the Clippers, he’ll need to find cutting angles, especially along the baseline, to make himself more useful, as Leonard especially operates a fair bit in the high-post, with double-teams usually originating from the corners.

Most importantly, however, is how Westbrook adjusts to the role of being more of a table setter and complementary scorer. The days of superstardom are long gone, and finding himself on his fifth team in as many seasons is a strong sign of that. Now is the time to accept where he is on the pecking order.

Kevin Love

The Miami Heat always seem to manage, even if they’re down on talent, going through injuries, or a third thing altogether. It’s a team you simply can never entirely rule out before they’re beaten.

For them to pick up a talent like Love, even if he is in the later stages of his career, is a rock solid find. While he fell out of the rotation in Cleveland, there should be an immediate role for Love with the Heat, as he gobbles in rebounds and can still knock down long shots from distance. Besides, the Heat are generally short on talent, especially at the big positions.

Granted, Love isn’t much of a dribbler or driver, and the Heat do love to see the ball move, but he’ll make up for that by functioning as a passing hub, a role he’s always been adept for.

The main problem area will be defense, which remains one of Miami’s points of priority. The Heat want everyone to defend at a high level, and when they can’t, that usually means changes. Duncan Robinson being a fairly solid reminder of that.

Will the Heat trust Love in the postseason where opponents will go straight at him, and likely burning him in pick-and-roll situations? If they do, it would be under the expectation that Love performs so well in other key areas that they win the matchups.

In the regular season, Love should be fine. There isn’t a major emphasis on making adjustments from game-to-game for opponents, and if he could help Miami secure a Top 6 seed, maybe it would all be worth it.

Unless noted otherwise, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball-Reference. All salary information via Spotrac. All odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.