Former Lakers coach Hamm was a guest on the podcast "Hoop Genius Podcast", during which he talked about his time with the Lakers and Westbrook.

Ham said that the Lakers had to make major changes in order to get Westbrook, which resulted in the team being filled with low-level role players, which made competition difficult.

"The situation with Westbrook was really tough. In order to get a player like that, you basically have to tear your team apart - and that's exactly what happened. In order to bring Westbrook to the Lakers, they had to part ways with Caruso, Pope, Kuzma and a lot of other players because they couldn't keep them because of financial issues. There were three max players on the team. You know, to be a top team and win a championship, you need a top team. A lot of times, financial constraints make that difficult to achieve."