It is no secret that former Arkansas Razorback point guard Patrick Beverley is one of the most emotional and aggressive guards in the NBA. Beverley has gotten in verbal confrontations with several players, including LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. He could be defined as a heat of the moment player.
On August 25, Beverley was traded from the Utah Jazz to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Jazz, in return, received forward Stanley Johnson and shooting guard Jalen Horton-Tucker.
Before going to the Jazz, Beverly played for the Minnesota Timberwolves for one season. The Jazz's trade with the Lakers came before he ever played a game for Utah.
After calling the Lakers a terrible team in the Minnesota Timberwolves' matchup versus the Lakers and getting into verbal spouts with the players, Beverley is now sharing the court with James and Westbrook, and all their attitudes toward one another seem to have changed.
Beverley spent four seasons with one of the Lakers' biggest rivals in the Los Angeles Clippers after being traded from the Houston Rockets during the 2017 NBA off-season. Since then, Beverley has been one of the biggest antagonists to the Lakers, as he bullied Lonzo Ball's first NBA game as a Laker, tormented LeBron James in key matchups and accounted for a 7-3 record versus the Lakers as a Clipper.
After being traded from the Clippers to Minnesota in the 2021 NBA off-season, Beverley continued to talk trash on the Lakers' culture and the players. The Timberwolves were 3-1 against the Lakers in their four meetings this past season with Beverley playing. Beverley has an overall record of 18-7 against the Lakers going back to his first season in the NBA with the Houston Rockets.
Beverley called Westbrook trash last season during a matchup between the Lakers and the Timberwolves when Westbrook missed a wide-open shot. Beverley claimed Westbrook ruined his career in 2019 when Westbrook said, "Pat Bev trick y'all, man, like he plays defense. He don't guard nobody, man. It's just running around, doing nothing." Since then, conversations between the two players have not been friendly.
Beverley is known as one of the best defenders is the league as an NBA All-Defensive First-Team selection in 2017 and a two-time All-Defensive Second-Team selection in 2014 and 2020.
Now it appears that Beverley and Westbrook may have ended their feud after Westbrook and new Lakers head coach Darvin Ham came to Beverley's introductory press conference. The two players were shown hugging it out as teammates. While it may appear the feud has subsided, the ill feelings may still exist. Westbrook and Beverley are players that hold grudges and for a team that has serious chemistry problems last season, it is not a good sign.
Two games into the 2021-2022 NBA season for the Lakers against the Phoenix Suns, Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard got into a fight on the sidelines. This was just the start of the disastrous season that the Lakers had. This was a team that many experts said they would go to the NBA Finals as the Western Conference Champions. The Lakers didn't even make the play-in tournament as they finished with an overall record of 33-49.
Beverley is confident he can take the Lakers into the playoffs this 2022-2023 NBA season as he says he did for the Minnesota Timberwolves. This roster, however, has gotten older with the addition of Beverley. The biggest losses of the Lakers include the potential Horton-Tucker could have provided in the future as well as their top-scorer outside of the big three (LeBron, Davis and Westbrook) in former Razorback Malik Monk, who signed with the Sacramento Kings this off-season.
Beverley is confident he can bring success to the Lakers, but he might be overconfident given the instability of the roster and its star players, who have age, injury concerns and inconsistency going against them.