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Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley both want championship rings if the Los Angeles Lakers go on to win the 2023 NBA title, Beverley said on Wednesday. During a live podcast after the Boston Celtics' blowout win against the Philadelphia 76ers, Beverley said he saw Westbrook at the gym earlier that day and his former Lakers teammate had something to say. 

"Russy goes, 'Hey, Pat. Lakers win, I want my ring,'" Beverley said, laughing.

Beverley's response, per Beverley: "I ain't gonna lie, Russ. We're going to be suited and booted, boy. I'm going to be right there, waiting on that ring."

Once rivals, Beverley and Westbrook became fast friends when the Lakers acquired Beverley last summer. In February, though, Los Angeles remade its roster, trading Beverley to the Orlando Magic and Westbrook to the Utah Jazz in the process. Both guards agreed to buyouts and signed with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Clippers, respectively.

The Lakers were 25-30 after Beverley and Westbrook's final game with the team, but have since made late-season run, finished 43-39, won a play-in game, eliminated the No. 2-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in six games and taken a 1-0 series lead against the defending-champion Golden State Warriors in the second round. They are where they are as a result of the moves that sent Beverley and Westbrook elsewhere, but, if they go on to win the whole thing, it is theoretically possible that the two veterans -- and Kendrick Nunn, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damian Jones and Thomas Bryant, all of whom were also traded -- could receive championship rings.

In 2017, after the Warriors won the title, they gave a ring to Andreson Varejao, whom they had waived that February. Two years later, though, the Toronto Raptors did not offer rings to Jonas Valanciunas, CJ Miles and Delon Wright, all of whom had been traded midseason. "It's not an easy decision," Raptors general manager Bobby Webster told the Toronto Sun at the time, "but, to be honest, I think it's standard." Webster called the Varejao situation "a really unique circumstance."