Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant believes Joel Embiid should win this season's NBA MVP award.

The Philadelphia 76ers center and reigning MVP Nikola Jokic are the clear favourites for this season's award, with Giannis Antetokounmpo in the running, too.

Durant, who was the MVP in 2014, pointed to Embiid's scoring when he said he deserved the nod marginally ahead of Denver Nuggets big man Jokic.

"If I had to choose, I would go Joel Embiid," Durant told reporters.

"He led the league in scoring, double-doubles, his team won 50 games this year. His numbers were incredible. It's a great year.

"But you can just close your eyes and just pick any one of the guys out of the top six or seven, and you can have a good MVP this year.

"That shows how great our league is right now and how talented our league is from top to bottom, but I would go with Embiid if I had to choose."

Embiid finished the regular season with the scoring title, averaging 30.6 points per game, along with 11.7 rebounds and 4.2 assists. He also had 46 double-doubles.

Jokic was second in the NBA across the regular season for rebounds, averaging 13.8. The Serbian center also contributed 27.1 points and 7.9 assists, with 66 double-doubles and 19 triple-doubles – two league highs.

The 76ers finished with a 51-31 record to claim fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, while the Nuggets were sixth in the West with a 48-34 record.

Durant was also critical of MVP voting, claiming a player's narrative or story too often fed into the results.

"It's unfortunate," Durant said. "There's a lot of players that have been controlled by their narrative.

"Some of it has been because of the player, some of it just has been because of the perception of other people about that player.

"In Joel's case, more people just like Giannis and Jokic. It's as simple as that. They just prefer them more than Embiid's personality or his story, I guess."

Embiid was the runner-up for last season's MVP behind Jokic, with Stephen Curry in third.

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry could return to full practice this week as he recovers from a sprained ligament and a bone bruise in his left foot.

Curry has not played since March 16 when he suffered a sprained ligament and a bone bruise in his left foot against the Boston Celtics, missing the side's past 12 games.

The Warriors will face the Denver Nuggets in the first-round playoffs, with Game 1 scheduled for Saturday in San Francisco.

Curry remains "day-to-day" but Kerr said he would need to join in scrimmage, scheduled for Thursday, ahead of Saturday's game, having been restricted to individual work.

"It's essential, we're not going to play him without giving him a scrimmage," Kerr told reporters on Tuesday.

"The whole team will need a scrimmage given that we generally play every other day and all of a sudden we have six days between games, that's pretty unique.

"Everybody will need a scrimmage but it would be irresponsible to put Steph out there in a playoff game without having scrimmage time before."

He added: "Each day will determine where he is and what he can do the following day. At the end of the week, we'll determine if he's ready or not. It's hard to predict much."

The Warriors went 6-6 without Curry in the side across the final dozen regular-season games, winning their final five to see off the Dallas Mavericks for third seed in the Western Conference.

Kerr had previously said: "We'll see how everything goes with Steph next week. There's a chance he could be ready for game one, there's a chance he might not.

"It's literally going to be a day-to-day thing as it all unfolds this week. We'll know a lot more after the next few days when he's ramping up his work. but there's a chance we could get everybody on the same age and healthy.

"We haven't reached our potential yet. That's exciting to me. We have some room for growth."

Juan Soto made history with his 100th career home run in the Washington Nationals' 16-4 loss to world champions, the Atlanta Braves, on Tuesday.

Soto, 23, became the youngest player in franchise history to reach 100 career home runs with a moon shot at the top of the sixth inning.

The homer, which travelled 451 feet according to Statcast to right-center field, was the fourth longest of his career.

"It just comes to me. I never tried to hit a homer, or anything like that," Soto told reporters. "I’m one of the guys who just tries to hit singles every day. So for me to become consistent hitting homers, it’s just impressive and it tells how good I’ve been working on my body and everything."

Soto is the seventh active player to blast 100 homers at age 23 or younger, having first homered as a 19-year-old in 2018.

The Braves ultimately got the win after 10 runs in three innings to open up a 10-1 lead after four innings, but Soto finished with two hits, one run, one walk and one RBI.

Ozzie Albies, who finished with three hits, two runs and three RBIs, blasted his first homer of the 2022 season in the fourth inning.

The Dallas Mavericks have not ruled out All-Star Luka Doncic from Saturday's NBA first round playoffs opening game against the Utah Jazz despite confirming a left calf strain.

Doncic limped from the court in Sunday's win over the San Antonio Spurs, putting him in doubt ahead of the playoffs.

The Mavericks announced that an MRI on Monday had confirmed the superstar had suffered a strain in his calf but did not set a timetable on his recovery.

"If he's able to go out and put on his shoes, then he's going to go," Mavs head coach Jason Kidd told reporters after Tuesday's practice.

"If he can't, we're not going to put him in a situation to jeopardize it and make things worse."

The Mavericks will turn to Spencer Dinwiddie to start if Doncic is unavailable. Doncic has an NBA-high 37 per cent usage rate this season.

Dinwiddie has averaged 15.8 points and 3.9 assists in 23 games for the Mavs since his trade deadline deal from the Washington Wizards.

Doncic averaged 28.5 points, 9.1 rebounds and 8.7 assists this season.

The Brooklyn Nets defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 115-108 in the first game of the NBA Play-In Tournament on Tuesday.

The Nets are now the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference, confirming a playoff matchup with the second seed Boston Celtics.

Kyrie Irving made 10 straight attempts on the way to 34 points and 12 assists, but Kevin Durant took over in the second half with 25 points and 11 assists, as well as two steals and three blocks.

The Nets led by as much as 22 points at one stage, but it was on the back of Durant and Irving starting off hot. The Cavs managed to hang in there and cut it down to single digits with Darius Garland's free-throws and triple following Goran Dragic's flagrant foul.

Garland finished with 34 points on 13-of-24 shooting, but Caris LeVert and Lauri Markkanen experienced a poor shooting night, combining for 25 points but on nine-of-26 attempts from the floor.

The Cavs will play the winner of Wednesday's matchup between the Charlotte Hornets and the Atlanta Hawks, for a chance to take on the Miami Heat in a seven-game series.

Timberwolves win through to face Grizzlies

The Minnesota Timberwolves reached the playoffs for the second time since 2004 with a 109-104 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Timberwolves, who lost All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns who fouled out early in the fourth quarter, finished with a 26-11 run to secure victory, which means they will face the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs.

Anthony Edwards (30 points with five three-pointers and five rebounds) and D'Angelo Russell (29 points and six assists) starred offensively, while the relentless Patrick Beverley was excellent against his former side with 11 rebounds.

Paul George kept the Clippers in the contest with 34 points including six three-pointers with seven rebounds and five assists.

The Clippers will next face the winner of the New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs' play-in game for a shot at the eighth seed in the Western Conference.

Kevin Durant admits it will be tough to stop Jayson Tatum after the Brooklyn Nets progressed to the playoffs where they will face the Boston Celtics in a blockbuster first round series.

The Nets got past the Cleveland Cavaliers 115-108 in the play-in tournament on Tuesday to clinch the seventh seed, meaning they will face the second-seeded Celtics.

Durant scored 25 points with five rebounds and 11 assists, while ex-Celtics guard Kyrie Irving had 34 points with 12 assists.

The last time the two sides met, the Nets were beaten 126-120 by the Celtics on March 7 with Tatum scoring 54 points.

Tatum is seventh overall this season for points per game, averaging 26.9 shooting at 45.3 per cent from the field and 35.3 from three-point range.

"That's a tough question," Durant told reporters, when asked how to stop Tatum. "He's one of those players you've got to play hard and see what happens.

"He's just so talented, skilled and efficient at what he does. We've just got to play hard and I expect us to."

Irving added that keeping Tatum quiet would go a long way towards winning the series.

"It starts with really slowing JT down," Irving said. "He has a great feel playing against us. Everyone else around is very complementary to that attack."

Durant added: "[It's about] staying disciplined, playing together and playing with passion. I don’t have the schemes or the strategy to break it down to you. That's what every team needs to bring to win in the postseason."

The Celtics are one of the form teams in the NBA, going 35-12 since the turn of the year to finish the regular season with a 51-31 record.

Nets head coach Steve Nash said: "I'm really impressed with the Celtics, the job Ime [Udoka] has done. They've been able to build on that continuity.

"That group has been together for quite a while. They've made some tweaks and adjustments that have really improved their team both ends of the floor.  

"It'll be a great challenge for us. For a new group to go and play a team like that that's terrific at both ends is going to be something that hopefully brings the best out of us."

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry could return to full practice this week as he recovers from a sprained ligament and a bone bruise in his left foot.

Curry has not played since March 16 when he suffered a sprained ligament and a bone bruise in his left foot against the Boston Celtics, missing the side's past 12 games.

The Warriors will face the Denver Nuggets in the first-round playoffs, with game one scheduled for Saturday in San Francisco.

Curry remains "day-to-day" but Kerr said he would need to join in scrimmage, scheduled for Thursday, ahead of Saturday's game, having been restricted to individual work.

"It's essential, we're not going to play him without giving him a scrimmage," Kerr told reporters on Tuesday.

"The whole team will need a scrimmage given that we generally play every other day and all of a sudden we have six days between games, that's pretty unique.

"Everybody will need a scrimmage but it would be irresponsible to put Steph out there in a playoff game without having scrimmage time before."

He added: "Each day will determine where he is and what he can do the following day. At the end of the week, we'll determine if he's ready or not. It's hard to predict much."

The Warriors went 6-6 without Curry in the side across the final dozen regular-season games, winning their final five to see off the Dallas Mavericks for third seed in the Western Conference.

Kerr had previously said: "We'll see how everything goes with Steph next week. There's a chance he could be ready for game one, there's a chance he might not.

"It's literally going to be a day-to-day thing as it all unfolds this week. We'll know a lot more after the next few days when he's ramping up his work. but there's a chance we could get everybody on the same age and healthy.

"We haven't reached our potential yet. That's exciting to me. We have some room for growth."

World number one Novak Djokovic explained that he could just not get up to the level of sharpness required in his shock defeat at the Monte Carlo Masters.

Djokovic slumped out in the second round on Tuesday when he lost 6-3 6-7 (5-7) 6-1 to world number 46 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

The Serbian's status as an unvaccinated player has limited his ability to compete on the ATP Tour this year and he has played in just one tournament so far, getting to the quarter-finals in Dubai. 

Yet his preparations for the French Open, which starts at the end of next month, hardly got off to a good start as he made 51 unforced errors in what was still, despite his rustiness, a surprise defeat.

"I didn't like the way I felt physically in the third. I just ran out of the gas completely," Djokovic told the media. 

"Just couldn't really stay in the rally with him. I mean, if you can't stay in the rally, not feeling your legs on the clay, it's mission impossible.

"I'm going to look with my team into reasons why that was the case and go back to the drawing board. Hopefully next week will be better in Belgrade."

Though Djokovic has won twice in Monte Carlo, it has not been a happy hunting ground for him in recent years. He has not advanced past the quarter-final stage since 2015.

He added: "It's going to take some time for me to really feel my best on the clay.

"That's historically always been the case. [I have] never played very well in the opening tournaments of the clay season.

"But it's okay. Obviously it is what it is. I have to accept the defeat and keep working."

While unhappy with his own performance, Djokovic had nothing but praise for his opponent. 

"I would like to congratulate Alejandro. He was the better player," Djokovic said. "He managed to find a better rhythm I think in the first two sets. I was hanging on the ropes the entire match. I was really chasing the result constantly.

"I always believed that I could come back and win the match, and I stayed there even though a lot of things were against me in terms of how I felt on the court. Game-wise, physically I was just far from my best.

"I expected this match to be [a] really tough match, [a] physical battle, and that's what it was. Unfortunately I'm on the shorter end of the stick, and my week ends here."

Djokovic's defeat also means a mouthwatering contest with teenager sensation Carlos Alcaraz, who he might have met in the quarter-finals, will not be taking place.

Speed is a highly valued asset in the NFL and if you needed any reminder of the premium the league places on wide receivers who can create separation with raw acceleration, it arrived during perhaps the wildest offseason in history.

A frenzy of blockbuster trades was capped off last month by the Miami Dolphins parting with first and second-round picks in this year's draft, two fourth-round selections and a 2023 sixth-rounder to acquire Tyreek Hill from the Kansas City Chiefs.

Miami subsequently made Hill the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL by signing him to a four-year, $120million contract extension, including $72.2m guaranteed.

The price teams are prepared to pay for speed receivers of Hill's calibre is an extremely promising harbinger for wideouts in this month's draft who share his ability to take the top off of a defense. 

Among another uber-talented class of players at the receiver position, one man stands above the rest in possessing that specific trait, Alabama's Jameson Williams.

His hopes of going in the first round took a huge hit when Williams tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the National Championship Game in January, ending a sparkling sole season with the Crimson Tide after he transferred from Ohio State.

Yet between the significant advancements in ACL recovery - giving Williams a chance of making an impact in his rookie year - and how desperate NFL teams are for big-play receivers who can flip the field in an instant, it still appears likely he will hear his name called on night one in Las Vegas.

A first-round draft status would be the least Williams deserves, with the advanced metrics and his Alabama tape combining to paint a picture of a receiver who is not only the top deep threat in the draft, but also has an extremely compelling argument for being considered the best all-round receiver in this deep class.

Belated big-play impact

His injury meant Williams was unable to take part in any pre-draft athletic testing but, while teams have not had the chance to put a 40-yard dash time next to his name, the impact of his speed was obvious during a brief but ultra-productive stay with Alabama.

Having made only 15 catches in two seasons at Ohio State, where he played behind two receivers expected to go in the first round in Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, Williams took full advantage of his opportunity to shine down in Tuscaloosa.

Williams racked up 79 catches for a team-high 1,572 yards, with his 15 touchdown catches tied for third in the FBS.

Nine of Williams' 15 touchdown catches were for 40 or more yards, while no player in the FBS produced more than his nine receptions of at least 50 yards, four more than the wideout who stepped into his third receiver role at Ohio State, Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Landing with college football's modern-day juggernaut undoubtedly helped his cause, but the 2021 season was one in which Williams' established himself as the premier downfield weapon in the FBS by separating more consistently and more dramatically than any of his peers near the top of this year's receiver draft board.

Feel the burn

Blending elite speed with lower-body flexibility that enables him to be a substantial threat on double moves, Williams thrived running post-corner and corner-post routes downfield during his time with Alabama, with his proficiency in creating substantial separation going deep reflected by his burn rate.

Burn rate measures how often a receiver wins his matchup with a defender on a play where he is targeted. Williams did so on 74.6 per cent of his targets in 2021.

Williams' burn rate was superior to that of Wilson (71.6 per cent), Olave (69.9), USC's Drake London (71.3) and Arkansas star Treylon Burks (64.8).

He comfortably led the way in burn yards per target, his average of 19.34 nearly five full yards better than that of his nearest challenger, Cincinnati's Alec Pierce (14.74), and was also the cream of the crop in burn yards per route (4.9).

In other words, none of the other receivers anticipated to be in the first-round conversation came close to generating as much separation as Williams, who was the class of this field when it came to defeating his defender's coverage.

Yet in the endless quest for mismatches that is the NFL in 2022, it is not just Williams' success in separating that makes him such an intriguing prospect, it is the varied nature of a skill set ideally suited to where modern passing games are going.

Slot machine

There has arguably never been a better time to enter the NFL as a receiver who can win because of that extra gear at their disposal.

Hill coalesced perfectly with Patrick Mahomes during their time together in Kansas City and, as quarterbacks blessed with Mahomes' extraordinary arm talent become the archetype in the league, there figures to be an increasing demand for receivers who can get behind the secondary along with wideouts with the size and catch radius to mitigate inaccurate throws.

Williams may not have an intimidating frame at 6ft 2in and 189 pounds, but he does possess outstanding ball tracking ability and the body control to turn off-target throws into completions.

Elite receivers of all moulds - from route-running aficionados Cooper Kupp and Davante Adams to yards after catch monsters like Deebo Samuel and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' physically imposing duo of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin - are spending an increasing amount of time playing, and thriving, from the slot.

Winning inside and out is a prerequisite for top-tier wideouts at the NFL level, and that is a box Williams checks emphatically.

Able to win with patient and intelligent footwork at the start of his route and through varying his route speeds, Williams' physical gifts have seen him develop into a substantial threat to pick up yardage after the catch on underneath routes that can be run from the slot, with his advanced metrics when lined up inside nothing short of astonishing.

Williams ran 132 routes from the slot in 2021 and was targeted 40 times. His burn rate from the slot was 77.5 per cent compared to 73 per cent when he lined up as an outside receiver.

He averaged 26.53 burn yards per target and 8.04 burn yards per route from the slot, while he produced a big play on 59.7 per cent of slot targets.

Those numbers dwarf his still impressive statistics as an outside receiver - 15.46 burn yards per target, 3.62 burn yards per route and a big play rate of 41.7 per cent - though that disparity is largely a product of Williams running a lot of his deeper routes from the slot.

Indeed, Williams' average depth of target from the slot was 19.3 yards, compared to 11.5 yards from the outside.

Such a gulf is unlikely to exist in the pros. In a league so heavily influenced by Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay and their offensive system, Williams should expect to see his speed utilised to stretch the field horizontally as much as vertically at the next level. The Dolphins' aggressiveness in trading for Hill despite Tua Tagovailoa's arm paling in comparison to that of Mahomes perhaps foreshadowed that teams whose quarterbacks cannot so easily access downfield throws may still be interested in pursuing a burner of Williams' talents.

But, with the Green Bay Packers - who traded Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders and lost their deep threat, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, to Kansas City - and the Chiefs both possessing two picks in the second half of the first round, Williams could yet find himself catching passes from either Aaron Rodgers or Mahomes and executing the best-laid gameplans of Matt LaFleur or Andy Reid. 

The college football world only got a fleeting glimpse of what Williams could do when given a featured role for a dominant program. More prolonged pain for NFL defenses will come if he ends up landing with a team that can claim to have one of the NFL's best arms and a sharp offensive mind in their employ.

Novak Djokovic suffered a stunning defeat in his first ATP Tour match since February, the world number one losing in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Djokovic's status as an unvaccinated player has limited his ability to compete on the tour this year. He missed the Australian Open in January after a saga surrounding his visa eventually resulted in his deportation on public health grounds, while laws around vaccination against COVID-19 in the United States prevented him from playing at Indian Wells and Miami.

Despite his inactivity, the Serbian - whose sole appearance on tour this year came during a run to the quarter-finals in Dubai - was expected to prevail on the clay against his Spanish opponent after receiving a bye in the first round.

But there were evident signs of rust in a mistake-riddled display against the world number 46, who remarkably emerged victorious to set up a meeting with either Dan Evans or David Goffin.

The tide looked to have turned in the second set tie-break, when an exquisite whipped forehand from Djokovic sent the match to a decider.

However, Djokovic, who committed 51 unforced errors, immediately surrendered the momentum by dropping serve in the first game of the third and he was broken twice more as Davidovich Fokina powered to a 6-3 6-7 (5-7) 6-1 victory in just under three hours.

"I knew that Nole hasn't had that confidence because he didn't play a lot," Davidovich Fokina said.

"This win is so special for me. I look at him every tournament. Here in Monte Carlo, full people [capacity], against the number one, I enjoy every moment."

Earlier, Evans saw off Benjamin Bonzi while Goffin, fresh off his triumph in Marrakech, came through against Jiri Lehecka to set up their second-round meeting.

Tenth seed Taylor Fritz defeated Monegasque wild card Lucas Catarina in three sets and 16th seed Lorenzo Sonego saw off Ilya Ivashka in straight sets. Laslo Djere, a semi-finalist in Marrakech, also progressed to the second round.

Kim Clijsters has called time on her latest tennis comeback, announcing her retirement from playing in official tournaments.

The Belgian surprisingly stepped away from the sport in 2007, before returning in 2009 to win back-to-back US Open titles in 2009 and 2010 before being crowned the 2011 Australian Open champion.

Clijsters retired again after the 2012 US Open, where she was beaten in the second round, before returning in February 2020 at the age of 36.

The former world number one's first match in over seven years came at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, losing in straight sets to Garbine Muguruza, while her last official match was in October, when she was defeated by Katerina Siniakova in the first round at Indian Wells.

Clijsters took to Instagram on Tuesday to announce her decision, posting: "I want to share with you that I have decided to no longer play official tournaments. I can't wait to see what new adventures will cross my path. Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past two years!"

Mother of three Clijsters revealed stepping away from tennis again had "been on my mind for a while."

"I still love to hit the ball," she told the WTA website. "With my schedule, three, four days was enough to keep my rhythm under control but definitely not good enough if I decided to play another tournament. Say, if I picked Australia, it's three, four weeks. That's just not possible at this stage in our family life.

"Life just sort of takes over, right?"

Clijsters won three US Open singles titles in all, as well as her Australian Open crown, and in 2003 won both the French Open and Wimbledon doubles titles with Ai Sugiyama.

She became world number one on four separate occasions, winning 41 overall titles and boasting a career match record of 523-131 (80.0 per cent).

It was perhaps not the most surprising news when it emerged on Monday that coach Frank Vogel had been dismissed by the Los Angeles Lakers.   One of the most star-studded teams of all time inexplicably failed to even make the NBA Play-In tournament, finishing the season with a record of 33-49 and in 11th place in the western conference.   However, it would have been astonishing to imagine this scenario in September, when Vogel was handed a one-year extension to his deal, and especially a year prior to that when he was lifting an NBA championship in his first year with the Lakers.   How did we get here, though?

Vogel enjoyed a good start to his career in coaching, making it to the play-offs with the Indiana Pacers in each of his first four years, reaching the conference finals in 2013 and 2014.

After six years in Indiana, he moved to the Orlando Magic, but was unable to repeat the trick there with a young team, with an overall regular season record in his two years in Florida of 54-110, failing to reach the post-season in either campaign before being fired in 2018.

A year later, he was appointed by the Lakers, making a great start as he boasted a regular season record of 52-19, before going on to win their first championship in 10 years.

Vogel's second season was not as smooth, with a 42-30 regular season record. A dramatic Play-In victory against the Golden State Warriors brewed excitement that another dramatic championship run could be on the cards, but a 4-2 defeat to the Phoenix Suns in the first playoff round ended those hopes.

Despite that setback, his post-season win percentage of 66.7 is the third-best in Lakers history, behind only Pat Riley (68.5) and Paul Westhead (68.4).

However, even after having faith shown in him with a one-year contract extension in August 2021, Vogel was unable to add to those figures with a spectacular failure to reach the post-season this year.

The regression in 2020-21 had largely been put down to injury issues suffered by two of his stars, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and with those two back fit and after trading to bring Russell Westbrook in from the Washington Wizards, the Lakers went into the 2021-22 season as one of the favourites to go all the way.

While Davis and James have suffered further injury setbacks, the latter has still had one of his most productive seasons of an illustrious career, and a failure to get anything like the best out of Westbrook has also been a factor.

James averaged over 30 points per game (30.3) for the first time since 2007-08, with only Joel Embiid averaging more across the league (30.6), though it was the first season since 2009-10 in which Westbrook averaged fewer than 20 points per game (18.5).

The 33-year-old did not hold back when asked about Vogel on Monday, saying at his exit interview: "I think it's unfortunate, to be honest, because I've never had an issue with any of my coaches before.

"I'm not sure what [Vogel's] issue was with me, or I'm not sure why, but I can't really give you an answer to why we really never connected."

The writing was on the wall towards the end of the season, with the Lakers losing eight straight games to miss out on the Play-In tournament, only slightly improving their record with two final wins before the end of the regular season, and ultimately, the end of Vogel's time in LA.

Russell Westbrook feels he was never given a fair shot at delivering the best version of himself throughout a frustrating first season at the Los Angeles Lakers.

The 2017 MVP was acquired from the Washington Wizards during the offseason but struggled for form across the 2021-22 campaign.

Westbrook posted his lowest points-per-game season average for over a decade, as the Lakers missed out on the playoffs.

Speaking in his final media conference of the term, Westbrook hit out at "narratives" about his arrival, and added he felt he was forced to "prove himself" in a superstar side.

"People create narratives of me and who I am and what I do and what I believe in that are just not true," he stated.

"I'm always having to prove myself again and year after year after year, which is to me, just unfair. There's literally no reason to have to do that.

"So when I first got here, I just felt that I never was given a fair chance just to be who I needed to be, to be able to help this team."

Championship-winning coach Frank Vogel was dismissed on Monday, and Westbrook was candid on his relationship with the now-ex Lakers man, admitting he believed they struggled to click.

"I'm not sure what his issue was with me, or I'm not sure why, but I can't really give you an answer why we never really connected," he added.

"Maybe you know, that's something that he has to answer but from the get go I was feeling [I had] to prove myself to him and my capabilities and what I've been able to do for this game.

"It's unfortunate, but it's really not come out of my hands."