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Russell Westbrook Picks Up Player Option for 2025 Season
Right after the Brandon Boston Jr. news dropped, Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Russell Westbrook would pick up his $4M player option for the 2025 season to return to the Clippers.
In my opinion, this was always the expected outcome. Just like last summer, the idea that Russ had a team out there willing to offer him either a bigger contract or a larger team role (much less both) never made much sense to me. Go down the list of NBA teams and see which ones would start Russ or give him much more than $4M. The answer is most likely none.
However, this does not mean Russ will actually be on the Clippers next year. All the reporting out there is that he doesn’t want to come back, and the Clippers’ front office has never seemed to really want him in the first place. Law Murray of the Athletic confirmed Russ’ player option choice as well as that his actual future on the Clippers remains up in the air.
My hunch would be that Russ gets traded somewhere to be a backup and the Clippers go another direction, but we will just have to wait and see. In the meantime, the Clippers will tentatively have Russ on their roster for the 2025 season.
Russell Westbrook Picks Up Player Option for 2025 Season
Robert Flom