Tim Bontempts argues that the Denver Nuggets, when healthy, should bench Russell Westbrook and limit his role if they’re serious about competing for a championship:

Full Episode: https://youtu.be/wQ2mH3s4wF8?si=hYLFx6tAtKAg2Bzv

Clip: https://x.com/aph00ps/status/1878857051025125776?s=46

Full Transcript:

I mean, look, right now, I'm not going to be put in a position of having to try to say negative things about Russell when he's played well lately. The idea that Russell Westbrook working with Nikola Jokic means he should be in the starting lineup is, I think, counter intuitive. I like yes, it doesn't surprise me that Russell commanding the bench has not gone great. And Russell playing with the best player on the planet has gone great. But that's fairly rational to me. They're 6 or 7 points per 100 worse with Russ on the court that off this year over the course of the year. Obviously his numbers when he plays with your coach are quite good as you would expect. I would simply say if you are the Denver Nuggets and your goal is to try to win a championship, we already talk about how this team doesn't shoot the ball enough from three, right? Russ being out there, presumably being on the ball because he needs to be on the ball to be effective means Jamal Murray has the ball less. Could argue that's could argue. Hold on. You could argue that's better because Jamal has not been great this year. But still I would not want to be taking away from two man game of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic as much as possible late in games five Russ out there. The other thing I would say is to me, if this team is going to win a championship, which should be their goal with the best player on the planet, on their team increasing Christian Braun’s confidence over the course of the year and continuing to have him shoot the ball more from the perimeter and playing as part of that starting lineup. To me, is a critical thing for them to do. Now he's only taken two and a half threes a game. He's hitting 38% of them. That's not enough volume to really matter. But to me, it's hard for me to look at this situation and think you move on from KCP. You put this young player in the starting lineup. He performs. Now you're taking him out of the starting lineup and flavor of having Russ in there, even if he perfectly understands it and gets in is fine with it. I don't see how that is helping this team's ultimate championship ceiling because let's be honest, if Russ is out there for 35 minutes in the playoffs with this group, I don't think that's getting it done at the end of the day.