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USA Today via Reuters

USA Today via Reuters

While the Warriors celebrated their NBA title, it was not a good season for many teams. There were some huge letdowns. This season the team, with absolute disappointment, was the Los Angeles Lakers. And the player who fell off the hardest was probably Russell Westbrook.

There’s no denying that Westbrook is one of the greats of the game. He has been a tremendous talent in the NBA and has shown his mantle more often than not. But this season might have just been one of the worst of his career. So it was natural that he would face criticism for it. In fact, Westbrook ended up as a ‘scapegoat’ for the team’s bad results.

Unfortunately for him, the name ‘Westbrick’ stuck and became a way to ridicule his performances. It was time that the veteran of such stature answered back. Throughout the season, he asked for respect to his name. However, most recently he said the same thing in a harsh way to the harshest LeBron James critic.

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Now it was also natural for Skip Bayless to reply to Russell Westbrook. And the reply was every bit fiesty.

Clearly, Skip wants ‘all the smoke’. Not sure if Russ would reply further, but it sure seems to be a ‘beef’ already.

Also read: “He’s the Epitome of a Coward”: Lakers Fans Back Russell Westbrook Who Finally Snapped at Long Term LeBron James Critic for His Absurd Comments

Fans went berserk as Skip challenged Westbrook to have a face-to-face interaction.

Russell Westbrook vs Skip Bayless dispute on Undisputed?

Skip has challenged Russ to join him on TV/podcast and the fans on Twitter are entertained to say the least.

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Russell Westbrook didn’t mind criticism most of the season. Honestly, a lot of times this season, he actually deserved it as well. The kind of player Russ has been over the years, he well and truly knows how bad this season was for him. So he expected the fans’ disappointment.

But what he can’t and by all means shouldn’t allow the disrespect on his name. There were times when he probably received too much blame for the Lakers’ woes last season. He was well below his standard. And he knew it as well.

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WATCH THIS STORY: 5 games which prove Russ West criticism is not fair.

Having said that, the situation got so worse that he revealed he and his family even got death threats. Now all jokes and name-calling aside, this was something deeply concerning. It should never come to this no matter how bad a player plays. Talking about Westbrook, he has done enough to ask for respect even if he had a poor season.